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THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 
AND  CHRISTIAN  REUNION 


THE 

DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 
AND  CHRISTIAN  REUNION 


BEING 


THE  BAMPTON  LECTURES 


FOR  THE  YEAR  19 20 


BY  THE 


REV.  ARTHUR  C.  HEADLAM,  D.D. 

CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH,  AND  REGIUS  PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY  IN  THE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 

FORMERLY  FELLOW  OF  ALL  SOULS’  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 
AND  PRINCIPAL  OF  KING’S  COLLEGE,  LONDON 


NEW  YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN  AND  CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  AND  30TH  STREET 
LONDON:  JOHN  MURRAY 
1920 


PRINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 


EXTRACT 

FROM  THE  LAST  WILL  AND  TESTAMENT 

OF  THE  LATE 

REV.  JOHN  BAMPTON, 

CANON  OF  SALISBURY. 

- 44  I  give  and  bequeath  my  Lands  and  Estates  to  the 

“  Chancellor,  Masters,  and  Scholars  of  the  University  of 
“  Oxford  for  ever,  to  have  and  to  hold  all  and  singular  the 
“  said  Lands  or  Estates  upon  trust,  and  to  the  intents 
“  and  purposes  hereinafter  mentioned;  that  is  to  say,  I 
“  will  and  appoint  that  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University 
“  of  Oxford  for  the  time  being  shall  take  and  receive  all  the 
“  rents,  issues,  and  profits  thereof,  and  (after  all  taxes, 
“  reparations,  and  necessary  deductions  made)  that  he  pay 
“  all  the  remainder  to  the  endowment  of  eight  Divinity 
“  Lecture  Sermons,  to  be  established  for  ever  in  the  said 
44  University,  and  to  be  performed  in  the  manner  following: 

4 4 1  direct  and  appoint,  that,  upon  the  first  Tuesday  in 
44  Easter  Term,  a  Lecturer  may  be  yearly  chosen  by  the 
44  Heads  of  Colleges  only,  and  by  no  others,  in  the  room 
44  adjoining  to  the  Printing-House,  between  the  hours  of  ten 
44  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  afternoon,  to  preach  eight 
44  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  the  year  following,  at  St. 
44  Mary’s  in  Oxford,  between  the  commencement  of  the  last 
44  month  in  Lent  Term,  and  the  end  of  the  third  week  in 
44  Act  Term. 

44  Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  the  eight  Divinity 
44  Lecture  Sermons  shall  be  preached  upon  either  of  the 
44  following  Subjects — to  confirm  and  establish  the  Christian 
44  Faith,  and  to  confute  all  heretics  and  schismatics — upon 
44  the  divine  authority  of  the  holy  Scriptures — upon  the 


vi  REV.  JOHN  BAMPTON’S  WILL 

“  authority  of  the  writings  of  the  primitive  Fathers,  as  to 
“  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  primitive  Church — upon  the 
“  Divinity  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ — upon  the 
“  divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost — upon  the  Articles  of  the 
“  Christian  Faith,  as  comprehended  in  the  Apostles’  and 
“  Nicene  Creed. 

“  Also  I  direct,  that  thirty  copies  of  the  eight  Divinity 
“  Lecture  Sermons  shall  be  always  printed,  within  two 
“months  after  they  are  preached;  and  one  copy  shall  be 
“  given  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  one  copy 
“  to  the  head  of  every  College,  and  one  copy  to  the  mayor 
“  of  the  city  of  Oxford,  and  one  copy  to  be  put  into  the 
“  Bodleian  Library;  and  the  expense  of  printing  them  shall 
“  be  paid  out  of  the  revenue  of  the  Land  or  Estates  given 
“  for  establishing  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons;  and  the 
“  Preacher  shall  not  be  paid,  nor  be  entitled  to  the  revenue, 
“  before  they  are  printed. 

“  Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  no  person  shall  be 
“  qualified  to  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  unless 
“  he  hath  taken  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  at  least,  in  one 
“  of  the  two  Universities  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge;  and  that 
“  the  same  person  shall  never  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture 
“  Sermons  twice.” 


PREFACE 


In  delivering  the  Bampton  Lectures  with  which  the 
University  of  Oxford  has  entrusted  me  I  have  been  able 
to  fulfil  a  design  which  I  have  had  in  my  mind  for  more 
than  thirty  years. 

The  subject  with  which  these  lectures  deal  is  twofold. 
There  is  first  the  historical  problem:  What  is  the  origin 
of  the  Christian  ministry  ?  That  is  one  which  has  attracted 
me  ever  since  my  undergraduate  days.  Shortly  before  I 
came  up  to  Oxford  Dr.  Hatch  delivered  his  Bampton 
Lectures,  and  these  stirred  up  a  renewed  interest  in  a 
problem  which  has  always  been  keenly  discussed  in  the 
Church  of  England.  Just  after  I  took  my  degree  Dr. 
Lightfoot  published  his  edition  of  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Ignatius,  where  again  the  problem  was  one  of  vital  im¬ 
portance.  During  my  early  years  in  Oxford  my  lecturing 
was  mainly  devoted  to  the  text  of  Eusebius  and  the  problems 
of  Early  Church  History,  and  I  have,  I  think,  from  that 
time  kept  myself  in  touch  with  almost  everything  of  im¬ 
portance  which  has  been  written  on  the  subject.  I  was 
first  able  to  put  my  views  into  writing  in  some  lectures 
that  I  delivered  in  Westminster  Abbey  at  the  request  of 
Dr.  Armitage  Robinson,  then  Dean  of  Westminster. 
Shortly  afterwards  I  began  a  series  of  articles  on  the  subject 
in  the  Church  Quarterly  Review.  Parts  of  these  have  been 
incorporated  in  these  lectures;  and  I  must  express  my 
thanks  to  the  proprietors  of  that  review  for  giving 
me  permission  to  do  this.  My  views  on  the  sub¬ 
ject  have  gradually  been  formed,  and  although  it  has 
not  been  possible  to  discuss  every  detail,  I  think  that,  as 
far  as  I  am  myself  concerned,  the  main  outlines  of  the 
history  have  become  clear.  References  are  made  from 

9  9 

vu 


vin 


PREFACE 


time  to  time  to  dissertations  on  particular  points;  some  of 
those  dissertations  are  partly  written,  and  I  should  hope, 
if  I  receive  any  encouragement  from  the  reception  of  this 
work,  to  complete  them  at  no  distant  time  in  the  future. 

The  second  problem  that  I  have  had  before  me  has  been 
the  practical  one,  partly  dependent  upon  the  historical 
question,  but  to  a  certain  extent  separated  from  it:  the 
problem  of  religious  reunion,  and  in  connection  with  that 
the  somewhat  complicated  questions  which  have  been 
raised  concerning  validity  of  Orders  and  Sacraments. 
Those  questions,  although  always  present,  became  really 
acute  in  the  discussion  about  Anglican  Orders  and  their 
recognition  by  the  Church  of  Rome  which  took  place  in 
the  years  1895-96.  To  that  controversy  X  have  referred 
in  the  body  of  this  work.  Its  effect  on  myself  was  to  create 
profound  distrust  of  the  methods  and  theology  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  at  the  same  time  a  feeling  that  we 
had  not  sufficiently  probed  to  the  bottom  the  question  of 
what  we  mean  by  valid  Orders  and  Sacraments.  More¬ 
over,  it  was  impossible  not  to  ask  whether  our  relation 
towards  Nonconformists  was  not  open  to  just  the  same 
criticism  as  the  relation  of  the  Church  of  Rome  towards 
ourselves. 

From  time  to  time  also  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostolic 
Succession  came  before  me,  and  I  found  myself  compelled 
to  consider  what  it  meant.  On  the  one  side  episcopacy, 
the  regular  succession  of  bishops,  the  solemnity  of  our 
orderly  administration  of  the  Sacrament  of  Orders,  appealed 
to  me  with  great  force;  and,  moreover,  much  of  the  criticism 
directed  against  it  seemed  to  me  unhistorical  and  sectarian. 
On  the  other  hand,  Apostolic  Succession  as  ordinarily 
taught  in  the  Church  of  England  seemed  to  be  mechanical 
and  entirely  unreal.  I  could  not  see  any  marked  superiority 
— often,  in  fact,  there  seemed  to  be  real  inferiority — in  the 
spiritual  life  and  capacity  of  our  clergy,  and  Anglicanism, 
although  extraordinarily  attractive  to  me,  seemed  often  to 
fail  in  life  and  effectiveness.  When  I  came  to  examine  the 
doctrine  historically,  I  was  equally  surprised  and  gratified 
to  find  how  different  was  the  more  primitive  teaching  on  the 
subject  from  that  which  was  customary  in  Anglican  circles. 


PREFACE 


IX 


Further  than  that,  1  was  surprised  to  see  what  little  support 
the  current  form  of  teaching  among  us  had  from  medieval 
or  even  modern  Roman  Catholic  theologians.  Their  point  of 
view  seemed  to  me  a  different  one,  and  I  began  to  suspect 
that  here  we  had  an  instance  of  insular  disproportion.  Those 
views  were  embodied  in  an  article  which  I  wrote  for  the 
Prayer-Book  Dictionary ,  and  I  was  much  gratified  to  find 
that,  as  far  as  regards  the  earlier  period,  the  historical 
statement  I  there  made  was  supported  and  strengthened 
by  my  friend  Mr.  Turner  in  his  essay  published  in  The 
Church  and  the  Ministry. 

A  new  series  of  questions  were  raised  by  the  Kikuyu 
controversy  to  which  I  devoted  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
Church  Quarterly  Review .  The  final  result  that  has  im¬ 
pressed  itself  upon  my  mind  is  that  we  have  no  sufficient 
justification  for  condemning  the  validity  of  any  Orders 
which  are  performed  with  a  desire  to  obey  the  commands  of 
Christ  and  fulfil  the  intentions  of  the  Apostles  by  prayer 
and  laying  on  of  hands,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
Church  rule  of  episcopal  ordination,  and  the  fact  of  Apostolic 
Succession  which  has  resulted  from  it,  was  in  the  past  the 
great  strength  of  Christian  unity,  and  that  the  breaking  of 
that  rule  has  been  one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  disunion. 
As  a  result  of  that  conclusion  I  arrived  at  the  practical 
solution  of  the  question  before  us  that  reunion  must  come 
from  the  mutual  recognition  of  Orders  and  Sacraments 
and  the  establishment  of  the  Catholic  rule  of  episcopacy 
and  episcopal  ordination  for  the  future  on  a  firm  and 
regular  foundation,  and  that  all  churches  must  approach 
one  another  in  a  spirit  of  humility,  with  a  desire  to  work 
out  together  the  right  method  of  building  up  the  Church, 
ready  to  learn  from  one  another,  and  conscious  of  their 
own  imperfections  rather  than  of  those  of  others. 

It  would  be  impossible  within  the  limits  of  this  preface 
to  express  my  obligations  to  all  those  from  whose  teaching 
or  books  I  have  learned,  but  there  is  one  who  has  lately 
passed  away  of  whom  I  should  like  to  say  something.  Dr. 
Harold  Hamilton,  a  son  of  the  late  Archbishop  of  Ottawa, 
a  member  of  Christ  Church,  and  a  Doctor  of  Divinity  of 
the  University  of  Oxford,  had  devoted  himself  for  many 


X 


PREFACE 


years  to  the  cause  of  reunion.  His  book  on  The  People  of 
God  is  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  stimulating  present¬ 
ments  of  the  religious  meaning  of  the  Old  Testament,  of 
the  development  of  the  New  Testament  from  the  Old,  and 
of  the  fundamental  principles  underlying  the  rise  of  the 
Christian  Church.  In  his  life  in  Canada  he  was  in  touch 
with  the  various  movements  towards  reunion  which  were 
taking  place  among  the  different  Nonconformist  bodies, 
and  assisted  them  by  his  advice  and  learning.  Shortly 
before  the  war  he  was  anxious  to  organize  a  conference 
amongst  various  representatives  of  the  Church  of  England 
on  the  question  of  Orders  and  the  Christian  ministry,  and 
the  searching  questions  which  he  proposed  as  a  preliminary 
inquiry  helped  me  much  in  clearing  my  own  mind.  He 
had,  at  the  same  time  as  myself,  been  invited  to  become 
a  candidate  for  the  Bampton  Lectureship,  and  would  have 
taken  the  same  subject  as  I  have  done,  but  even  then  his 
health  was  doubtful.  He  had  expended  himself  in  the  care 
of  his  aged  father  and  mother,  both  of  whom  passed  away 
during  1919.  He  was  to  have  been  married  in  Ottawa  in 
the  early  morning  of  Monday,  December  15,  1919,  but 
during  the  Sunday  night  he  was  stricken  with  paralysis 
and  never  recovered  consciousness  until  on  Saturday  evening 
he  quietly  passed  away.  He  was  buried  the  day  before 
Christmas  Eve.  His  death  is  a  great  loss  to  the  cause  of 
Christian  theology  and  of  Reunion,  and  I  am  glad  to  have 
this  opportunity  of  paying  some  small  tribute  to  his  memory. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  only  express  my  thanks  to  those 
of  my  friends  who  have  helped  me  in  the  correction  of  the 
proofs,  to  Bishop  Robertson,  to  Dr.  Nairne,  Dr.  Watson, 
Mr.  Jenkins,  Mr.  Brightman,  and  Mr.  Burroughs.  They 
have  all  of  them  pointed  out  defects.  In  some  cases  I 
have,  I  hope,  benefited  by  their  criticisms,  which  will, 
perhaps,  be  a  foretaste  of  what  I  may  have  to  meet  when 
these  lectures  are  published.  I  would  also  desire  to  express 
my  thanks  to  Miss  Catchpool  and  Miss  Isabel  Church,  who 
have  typewritten  these  lectures,  and  have  shown  much 
patience  in  deciphering  the  intricacies  of  my  handwriting; 
and  to  my  wife  for  much  assistance  with  the  Index, 


LECTURE 

I.  THE 

CONTENTS 

ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

PAGE 

I 

II. 

THE 

APOSTOLIC 

CHURCH 

- 

*  48 

III. 

THE 

CATHOLIC 

CHURCH 

- 

"  92 

IV. 

THE 

TEACHING 

OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

- 

-  133 

V. 

THE 

DIVISIONS 

OF  THE  CHURCH 

- 

-  174 

VI. 

THE 

DOCTRINE 

OF  THE  CHURCH— I.  - 

- 

~  208 

VII. 

THE 

DOCTRINE 

OF  THE  CHURCH — II.  - 

- 

-  241 

VIII. 

REUNION 

- 

- 

-  285 

INDEX  - 

m  0  ■  m 

- 

-  319 

xt 


“  Wholeheartedly  I  join  in  your  expression  of  thankfulness 
for  that  spirit  of  union  which  has  animated  us  through  years 
of  common  effort  and  common  sacrifice.  I  trust  that  some 
spirit  may  remain  with  us  to  strengthen  our  hands  for  the 
work  of  peace  and  to  soften  the  remembrance  of  old 
differences.  May  we  see  its  fruits  in  the  brotherly  co¬ 
operation  of  all  in  the  service  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
in  the  closer  ties  of  all  religious  bodies.’3 — His  Majesty 
the  King. 


XU 


THE 

DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 
AND  CHRISTIAN  REUNION 


LECTURE  I 

THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

That  they  all  may  be  one.” — St.  Joh&  xvii.  21. 

The  purpose  of  these  Lectures.  The  desire  for  Christian  Unity. 
The  method  to  be  followed.  The  historical  method. 

The  Jewish  community.  As  a  race,  a  nation,  and  a  church. 
Failure  of  the  national  idea.  The  meaning  of  a  church.  The  need 
for  such  a  conception.  Its  source  in  Judaism.  The  word  ecclesia. 
The  Jewish  failure. 

The  teaching  of  our  Lord.  Critical  difficulties.  The  method  to 
be  followed. 

The  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Its  various  significations.  Its 
eschatological  meaning.  Its  spiritual  meaning.  Its  use  to  imply 
a  society.  Later  interpretations  of  it. 

Discipleship.  The  Apostolate. 

The  word  ecclesia  in  the  Gospels.  The  commission  to  Peter,  to 
the  Church,  and  to  the  Apostles. 

The  Sacraments:  Baptism  and  the  Lord’s  Supper. 

Summary  of  the  argument. 

Applications  of  our  Lord's  teaching  and  method. 

It  is  reported  that  when  the  British  Army  entered  France 
the  village  priests,  influenced  by  a  natural  instinct  of 
religious  and  national  sympathy,  offered  the  use  of  their 
churches  for  the  service  of  the  troops.  The  authorities  of 
the  Roman  Church  in  England  intervened.  They  com¬ 
plained  to  Rome,  and  the  offer  was  disallowed.  It  is 
reported,  again,  that  on  more  than  one  occasion  when,  on 
the  eve  of  a  great  offensive,  with  the  prospect  of  immediate 
death  before  them,  pious  members  of  Presbyterian  and 
Nonconformist  Churches  desired  to  receive  the  communion 
at  the  hands  of  a  Church  of  England  chaplain,  their  request 
was  refused. 


1 


2 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Now  I  do  not  quote  these  instances  for  the  sake  of 
condemning  any  individual.  The  laws  of  the  different 
religious  bodies  were  probably  administered  honestly  and 
correctly.  I  rather  quote  them  as  the  most  speaking  illus¬ 
trations  that  I  know  of  the  deplorable  evil  of  the  present 
divided  state  of  Christendom.  Here  were  two  nations 
joined  together  in  what  they  believed  to  be  a  righteous 
cause,  offering  their  noblest  and  best  sons  freely  in  one 
another’s  service,  two  great  national  Churches  worshipping 
the  same  God,  serving  the  same  Master;  yet  through  differ¬ 
ences  and  divisions  created  many  centuries  back  they  were 
separated  in  the  holiest  things  of  life.  Here  were  men 
serving  side  by  side  in  the  same  army,  differing  from  one 
another  little  or  nothing  in  their  religious  beliefs,  prepared 
to  share  a  common  enterprise  and  common  danger.  In  a 
few  hours  their  bodies  might  be  lying  side  by  side,  stiff 
and  cold,  their  souls  together  passing  to  the  great  beyond, 
their  lives  together  to  be  weighed  before  the  judgement  seat 
of  God;  yet  they  could  not  on  earth  kneel  together  before 
the  same  altar,  through  differences  of  ecclesiastical  position 
which  they  had  had  no  share  in  creating,  and  which 
were  as  little  a  part  of  themselves  as  the  clothes  they 
wore. 

Could  we  have  any  better  illustration  of  the  evils  of  a 
divided  Christendom  ? 

It  is  this  problem  that  I  am  going  to  ask  you  to  discuss 
in  these  lectures.  It  is  one  the  difficulty  of  which  is  recog¬ 
nized.  There  is  wide  agreement  as  to  the  evils  of  disunion. 
There  is  a  great  and  increasing  desire  for  union.  But  so 
far  the  method  by  which  any  real  progress  may  be  made 
has  not  been  found.  Is  this,  after  all,  to  be  wondered  at  ? 
Is  it  wonderful  that  divisions  which  have  lasted  for  some 
hundreds  of  years  should  require  something  more  than  a 
few  years  of  increased  goodwill  and  amiable  aspirations  to 
terminate  them  ?  For  we  must  recognize  facts.  We  must 
remember  that  these  divisions  arose  on  questions  which 
were  looked  upon  as  fundamental,  and  in  the  opinion  of 
some,  at  any  rate,  are  still  considered  so.  Until  a  solution 
of  them  is  found  no  advance  can  be  made.  From  time 
to  time  reunion  is  discussed  as  if  it  were  an  economic 


THE  TEACHING  OF  THE  CREED 


3 


or  business  proposition.  The  waste  of  division  and  over¬ 
lapping  is  dwelt  upon,  the  loss  of  efficiency  or  the  weakening 
of  power.  All  such  questions  in  relation  to  Christianity 
are  secondary.  For  the  fundamental  point  to  remember 
about  it  is  that  it  claims  to  be  a  revelation  of  the 
truth,  and  to  teach  the  truth.  However  much  worldly 
motives  or  human  frailty  have  prevailed  among  the 
causes  of  Christian  disunion,  yet  ultimately  the  causes  of 
division  have  been  differences  as  to  what  is  true.  We  may 
on  investigation  discover  that  the  questions  at  issue  are 
not  really  of  importance,  we  may  find  a  solution  which  may 
harmonize  both  sides,  we  may  lead  people  to  a  deeper  point 
of  view  from  which  the  differences  appear  trifling,  but  we 
cannot  refuse  to  investigate.  There  are  intellectual  problems 
we  cannot  ignore.  The  evils  of  disunion  are  great;  but  a 
far  greater  evil  would  be  to  compromise  with  truth.  It 
would  be  better  that  we  should  remain  divided  than  leave 
problems  unsolved.  If  we  are  to  come  together  it  must  be 
by  wider  knowledge  and  deeper  thought,  and  not  by  evading 
the  issue.1 

It  is  our  purpose,  then,  to  discuss  that  particular  article 
of  the  Christian  creed  contained  in  the  words:  “  I  believe 
one  Holy  Catholick  and  Apostolick  Church,”2  for  it  will 
bring  us  in  contact  with  most  of  the  questions  which  at 
present  divide  the  Christian  Church.  The  method  I  pro¬ 
pose  to  adopt  is  primarily  historical.  We  must  begin  with 

1  So  Dr.  Forsyth  writes  ( Towards  Reunion,  p.  56) :  “In  these 
great  and  venerable  problems  solutions  are  not  simple,  else  they 
would  have  been  found  long  ago.  Answers  to  age-long  questions 
are  not  to  be  given  offhand.  .  .  .  We  cannot  deal  with  history  by 
wiping  the  slate  and  starting  afresh.  .  .  .  The  Church  rests  on 
its  belief,  which  it  is  constantly  clarifying  at  the  spring.  And  that 
is  why  the  scholars  of  history  and  the  thinkers  of  faith  are  coming 
to  play  such  a  part  in  the  matter.  From  being  polemics,  they  are 
turning  to  be  among  the  chief  eirenics  of  the  day.  Parties  may 
join  for  expediency,  but  Churches  can  unite  only  on  principle." 

2  Etc;  fxuiv  aylav  kciQo\uo)v  icai  aTroaroXua'/i/  ’EicicXtjrriav.  In  Our  version 
of  the  Nicene-Constantinopolitan  Creed  the  words  are,  “  I  believe 
one  Catholick  and  Apostolick  Church."  The  omission  of  “  holy  " 
appears  to  be  a  mere  blunder.  It  is  found  in  the  original  form 
of  the  Creed  as  contained  in  the  Exposition  of  Faith  of  the  Council 
of  Chalcedon  and  in  the  Revised  Creed  of  Jerusalem  as  given  by 
Epiphanius.  It  is  not  found  in  the  text  of  the  Creed  as  quoted 
at  the  Synod  of  Toledo  in  a.d.  589.  See  A.  E.  Burn,  An  Introduction 
to  the  Creeds,  p.  119. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


4 

history.  Now  I  notice  that  it  is  the  plan  of  many  investi¬ 
gators  first  to  state  their  theory  and  then  in  the  light  of 
that  theory  to  examine  the  Biblical  and  historical  evidence. 
It  is  not  unnatural  that,  pursuing  that  method,  they  should 
arrive  at  the  conclusions  they  desire.  Even  Bishop  Light- 
foot  in  his  famous  essay,  which  did  much  to  introduce 
historical  methods  into  this  discussion,  is  not  free  from  this. 
When  he  lays  down  authoritatively  in  the  first  paragraph 
the  statement  that  the  kingdom  of  Christ  “  has  no  sacer¬ 
dotal  system,”  it  is  obvious  that  he  is  assuming  at  the 
beginning  of  his  inquiry  a  principle  which  might  reasonably 
come  as  one  of  his  conclusions,  for  probably  more  than  half 
the  Christian  world  at  the  present  day  would  deny  the 
statement.1  I  notice,  again,  that  Bishop  Gore,  in  his  work 
on  the  Church  and  the  Ministry,  always  works  from  the 
dogmatic  presentation  of  his  thesis  back  to  the  Biblical  and 
historical  evidence.  In  the  first  sentence  he  lays  down 
authoritatively  the  doctrine  of  a  Christian  ministry  “  which 
is  regarded  as  having  a  divine  authority  for  its  stewardship 
of  Christian  mysteries  .  .  .  which  in  itself  is  believed  to  be 
derived  not  from  below  but  from  above,  and  to  represent 
and  perpetuate  by  due  succession  from  the  Apostles,  the 
institution  of  Christ.”  That  is,  he  assumes  one  of  many 
theories  of  the  ministry.  It  is  not  altogether  surprising  that 
he  is  able  to  find  what  he  desires;  but  we  can  well  imagine 
someone  else  starting  by  an  equally  authoritative  statement 

1  St.  Paul’s  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  “  The  Christian  Ministry,” 
p.  181.  By  J.  B.  Lightfoot,  D.D.:  “The  kingdom  of  Christ,  not 
being  a  kingdom  of  this  world,  is  not  limited  by  the  restrictions 
which  fetter  other  societies,  political  or  religious.  It  is  in  the 
fullest  sense  free,  comprehensive,  universal.  It  displays  this 
character,  not  only  in  the  acceptance  of  all  comers  who  seek  ad¬ 
mission,  irrespective  of  race  or  caste  or  sex,  but  also  in  the  instruc¬ 
tion  and  treatment  of  those  who  are  already  members.  It  has 
no  sacred  days  or  seasons,  no  special  sanctuaries,  because  every 
time  and  every  place  alike  are  holy.  Above  all  it  has  no  sacerdotal 
system.  It  interposes  no  sacrificial  tribe  or  class  between  God 
and  man,  by  whose  intervention  God  is  reconciled  and  man  for¬ 
given.  Each  individual  member  holds  personal  communion  with 
the  Divine  Head.  To  Him  immediately  he  is  responsible  and  from 
Him  directly  he  obtains  pardon  and  draws  strength.” 

We  may  recognize  ourselves  the  truth  of  this  statement,  but  we 
have  to  recognize  also  that  to  many  it  appears  neither  obvious  nor 
true,  and  that  others  who  might  agree  with  it  partialfy  might  con¬ 
sider  certain  reservations  necessary. 


THE  HISTORICAL  METHOD  5 

of  his  theory  arriving  at  quite  different  conclusions,  after 
an  equally  honest  investigation.1 

There  is  another  way — the  only  way  by  which  we  can 
hope  to  get  behind  our  differences.  That  is  the  purely 
historical  method,  the  method  which  begins  by  examining 
the  evidence,  which  seeks  to  construct  a  history  of  things 
as  they  were,  and  then  ultimately  to  draw  conclusions  from 
that  evidence.  That  is  the  method  which  I  shall  attempt 
to  carry  out  in  these  lectures,  and  I  can  at  least  claim 
that  I  have  set  it  before  myself  in  my  own  studies.  I 
am  conscious  of  the  difficulties  of  the  task,  of  the  natural 
infirmities  of  the  human  mind,  of  the  ease  with  which  an 
unrealized  prejudice  may  make  an  investigator  misrepre¬ 
sent  and  misinterpret  the  evidence.  Only  too  often  the 
professed  adoption  of  the  historical  method  appears  to  be 
but  a  device  for  concealing  one’s  bias.2  But  the  method 

1  The  Church  and  the  Ministry,  p.  i.  By  Charles  Gore,  D.D., 
Bishop  of  Oxford.  New  Edition,  revised  by  C.  H.  Turner,  M.A. 
(London :  Longmans,  Green  and  Co.  1919) :  “  The  reader  of  the 
history  of  Christendom  cannot  fail  to  be  conscious,  at  each  stage  of 
his  subject,  of  the  prominent  position  held  in  the  Church  by  a 
Ministry,  which  is  regarded  as  having  a  divine  authority  for  its  steward¬ 
ship  of  Christian  mysteries — an  authority  which  is  indeed  limited 
in  sphere  by  varying  political  and  ecclesiastical  arrangements,  but 
which  in  itself  is  believed  to  be  derived  not  from  below  but  from 
above,  and  to  represent  and  perpetuate  by  due  succession  from 
the  Apostles,  the  institution  of  Christ.” 

The  work  is  one  both  of  learning  and  candour,  but  the  reader 
will  notice  throughout  that  the  dogmatic  presentation  always 
precedes  the  history,  and  that  the  function  of  the  latter  is  to  prove 
rather  than  to  instruct. 

Equally  dangerous  is  the  attempt  made  by  Dr.  Moberly  in 
Ministerial  Priesthood  to  justify  the  theological  method  of  inter¬ 
preting  the  New  Testament  by  later  Church  history.  Because  all 
people  have  some  presuppositions,  and  some  have  bad  ones,  that 
does  not  justify  us  in  assuming  what  we  wish  as  the  basis  of  our 
inquiry.  What  probably  underlies  his  contention  is  a  confusion  of 
thought.  He  sees  that  there  has  been  much  bad  exegesis  from 
interpreting  the  New  Testament  in  accordance  with  modern  liberal 
or  Protestant  ideas.  The  way  to  correct  that,  however,  is  not  to 
interpret  it  in  accordance  with  modern  Anglo-Catholic  presupposi¬ 
tions,  but  to  try  and  discover  the  presuppositions  of  the  writers 
and  interpret  their  writings  in  accordance  with  their  own  ideas. 
That  is  the  historical  method. 

2  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  this  is  largely  the  case  with  Dr. 
Hatch,  whose  speculations  on  the  ministry  produced  at  one  time 
so  much  stir.  He  was  as  anxious  to  attack  the  current  theories  of 
the  ministry  as  others  were  to  defend  them.  It  is  remarkable  how 
few  of  his  speculations  have  been  corroborated  by  further  research. 


6 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


is  the  right  one.  It  is  the  only  one  by  which  a  solution 
may  be  obtained.  Many  men  must  attempt  a  task  before 
one  succeeds,  and  each  man’s  failure  contributes  something 
to  the  final  success.  Our  task  will  be  a  severe  one.  It  will 
demand  close  and  careful  attention.  It  will  not  provide 
much  scope  for  rhetoric  or  oratory.  It  will  not  provide  the 
satisfaction  of  large  generalizations,  or  those  clear-cut 
theories  which  are  so  attractive  to  some  minds.  I  must 
ask  your  attention  during  these  lectures  to  an  investigation 
which  will  often  be  lengthy  and  tedious,  but  will  at  any  rate 
aim  at  being  serious  and  honest. 

I  propose,  then,  to  discuss,  so  far  as  I  am  able,  in  an 
historical  manner,  the  growth  and  development  of  the 
Christian  Church.  That  means  that  we  attempt  to  look 
at  things  as  contemporaries  saw  them,  that  we  are  not  too 
anxious  to  ask  other  times  the  questions  that  interest  us 
now,  which  they  would  not  have  understood,  and  to  which 
they  cannot  give  a  direct  answer,  but  that  we  consider  what 
questions  they  put  to  themselves,  and  how  they  answered 
them,  what  problems  they  were  confronted  with,  and  how 
they  solved  them.  When  we  have  done  that  we  shall  be 
in  a  better  position  to  approach  the  problems  and  questions 
of  the  present  day.  Our  aim  is  to  draw  from  the  Christian 
experience  of  the  past,  not  to  see  the  past  merely  in  the 
light  of  modern  problems. 

To-day  I  propose  to  consider,  first,  the  preparations, 
Jewish  and  Gentile,  for  the  conception  of  a  Church;  and, 
secondly,  the  teaching  of  our  Lord. 

I 

Any  attempt  to  investigate  the  origin  and  development 
of  Christianity  as  a  society  should  begin  with  an  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  Jewish  environment  out  of  which  it  grew.  The 
very  name  ecclesia ,  or  Church,  which  Christianity  has  in  an 
especial  manner  made  its  own,  was  applied  to  the  Jewish 
community,  and,  like  so  much  of  the  early  Christian  ter¬ 
minology,  was  ready  to  hand,  only  requiring  that  its  content 
should  be  enlarged  and  enriched.  The  new  community 
grew  out  of  the  old.  Our  Lord  Himself,  while  emphasizing 


THE  JEWISH  ORIGIN  7 

the  need  of  new  bottles  for  new  wine,  yet  claimed  to  be 
fulfilling  and  completing  the  purpose  of  the  old  Israel.  The 
Apostles,  and  particularly  St.  Paul,  were  indeed  conscious 
of  a  new  life,  but  they  always  built  upon  the  past.  Their 
mental  environment  was  Jewish.  It  was  under  Jewish 
influences  that  the  early  Christian  communities  grew  up. 
In  time,  no  doubt,  they  were  influenced  by  Gentile  sur¬ 
roundings,  but  that  was  later.  It  was  out  of  Judaism  that 
the  Christian  Church  grew,  and  the  Jewish  community 
demands  our  first  attention.1 

The  Jewish  people  might  be  looked  upon  as  a  Race,  a 
Nation,  and  a  Church.  Originally  a  race,  they  had  con¬ 
tinuously  desired  to  become  a  nation,  but  never  with  real 
success ;  they  ended  in  creating  the  idea  of  a  Church. 

Originally  a  race,  they  have  never  lost  the  pride  and 
exclusiveness  of  race.  “  We  have  Abraham  to  our  father.”2 
They  believed  themselves  to  be  a  privileged  people.  By 
virtue  of  their  descent  alone  they  were  heirs  of  the  promises. 
Many  held  that  only  to  those  of  Jewish  descent  was  there 
any  entrance  to  the  most  fundamental  religious  privileges. 
But  any  claim  to  purity  of  descent  could  only  be  supported 
by  historical  fictions,  and  many  were  prepared  to  extend 
the  privileges  of  Judaism  to  those  of  other  races.  There 
were  two  distinct  tendencies.  There  were  some  who  would 
confine  all  religious  privileges  to  those  only  who  were  Jews 
by  descent,  and  were  averse  to  making  proselytes — at  any 
rate,  outside  the  limits  of  Palestine.  This  tendency  probably 
always  existed,  and  became  accentuated,  under  the  influence 
of  the  school  of  Shammai,  during  the  period  of  bitterness 
and  exasperation  which  succeeded  the  fall  of  Jerusalem. 
But  there  had  also  been  a  more  liberal  conception.  From 
an  early  date  residents  in  Palestine  had  been  admitted  by 

1  The  main  authorities  are  Schurer,  Geschichte  des  Judischen 
Volkes  im  Zeitalter  Jesu  Christi  ;  Bousset,  Die  Religion  des  Judentums 
in  Neutestamentliche  Zeitalter.  See  also  Reinach,  Textes  d’ Auteurs 
Grecs  et  Romains  relatifs  au  Judaisme.  The  greater  part  of  this 
section  is  taken  from  an  article  by  the  present  writer  in  the  Church 
Quarterly  Review  for  October,  1904,  pp.  29/.,  "  The  Christian  Society. 
I.  The  Jewish  Community.” 

2  St.  Matt.  iii.  9;  cf.  St.  Luke  i.  55;  St.  John  viii.  33,  39;  Acts  xiii. 
26;  Rom.  ix.  7,  xi.  I,  Ps.  Sol.  ix.  17,  tin  ov  jjpenaio  to  GTckppa  ’Aftpacip, 
irapa  tt avra  ra  iOvij, 


8 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


circumcision  to  share  the  privileges  of  Judaism/  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  Jewish  race 
was  of  Canaanitish  origin.  The  later  prophets  had  had 
visions  of  the  inclusion  of  Gentiles  within  the  limits  of  God’s 
people,2  and  during  the  times  of  the  Maccabees  these  aspira¬ 
tions  began  to  be  realized.  When  Idumaea,  Galilee,  and 
Ituraea  were  conquered,  the  inhabitants  were  compelled  to 
become  Jews.  A  similar  tendency  was  exhibited  among 
the  Jews  of  the  Diaspora,  who  made  many  converts  by 
moral  influence,  by  literary  propaganda,  and  by  the  power 
of  a  higher  religion.  In  some  districts  large  bodies  of 
converts  had  been  made,  and  probably  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  the  hatred  felt  for  the  Jews  was  that  they  were 
successful,  not  only  in  business,  but  also  in  extending  their 
faith.  “  To  such  an  extent,”  said  Seneca,  “  has  that 
accursed  race  increased,  that  it  has  been  received  into 
all  lands:  the  conquered  have  given  laws  to  their  con¬ 
querors.”3 

Some  became  full  proselytes;  others  adopted  the  mono¬ 
theism  and  moral  teaching  of  Judaism,  without  apparently 
submitting  to  circumcision,  and  other  equally  unattractive 
customs.  It  seems  to  have  been  particularly  among  this 
class  of  "  devout  ”4  men  and  women  that  Christianity  at 
first  spread,  while  the  actual  proselytes  were  among  the 
bitterest  opponents  of  St.  Paul.  But  in  any  case  the 
existence  of  these  two  large  classes  shews  that  there  were 
elements  in  Judaism  which  might  have  broken  down  its 
spirit  of  exclusiveness.  If  in  its  origin  Judaism  was  the 
religion  of  a  race,  it  might  have  burst  its  barriers.  It 
had,  in  fact,  begun  to  do  so  and  to  open  privileges  theoreti¬ 
cally  confined  to  the  descendants  of  Abraham  for  the  benefit 
of  all  races.  This  element,  like  the  other  free  elements  in 

1  Exod.  xii.  48. 

2  Isa.  xiv.  1;  cf.  lx.  3. 

s  Seneca  ap,  Augustine  De  Civitate  Dei  vi.  11  (Reinaoh,  op.  cit., 
p.  262), 

*  oi  (pofiov/AEvoi  rbv  Oe6v,  Acts  X.  2,  22,  xiii.  16,  26;  oi  OE^ofievoi, 
Acts  xiii.  50,  xvii.  4,  17;  oi  oefibpEvoi  tov  O eov,  Acts  xvi.  14,  xviii.  7; 
Jos.  Ant.  XIV.  vii.  2  (no);  oi  aefiofiEvoi  7 rpocF)]\vroi}  Acts  xiii.  43. 
See  also  Juvenal,  Sat.  xiv.  96-106  (Reinach,  p.  292),  and  the  passages 
collected  in  illustration  of  it  by  Professor  J.  E.  B.  Mayor  in  his 
Commentary. 


9 


THE  JEWS  AS  A  NATION 

Judaism,  Christianity  appropriated  to  itself,  while  those 
who  remained  Jews  retained  the  old  spirit  of  exclusiveness, 
embittered  by  the  sufferings  of  the  great  revolt  and  the 
destruction  of  their  sacred  city.1 

We  have  next  to  consider  the  Jews  as  a  nation.  At  first 
only  a  loose  confederation  of  tribes,  they  had  been  united 
under  David  into  a  powerful  kingdom,  which  had  been 
as  transient  as  are  most  Oriental  monarchies,  but  had 
served  to  create  an  ideal  and  to  shape  their  future  aspira¬ 
tions.  Under  the  influence  of  the  Prophets  there  grew  up 
the  expectation  of  the  coming  of  an  anointed  King  of  the 
house  of  David,  who  should  rule  in  righteousness  and  equity, 
under  whom  Israel  would  attain  once  more  the  half-mythic 
glory  of  the  past  and  hold  sovereign  sway  over  the  Gentiles. 
It  was  characteristic  of  Israel  that  its  hopes  were  always 
placed  in  the  future,  and  that,  however  gloomy  might  be  its 
political  fortunes,  it  believed  with  unconquerable  faith  in 
its  divine  destiny.  These  hopes  were  expressed  in  the 
expectation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  a  term  which,  at 
the  time  of  our  Lord,  summed  up  the  social,  political,  and 
religious  ideals  of  the  nation. 

It  took  various  forms.  Some  expected  in  a  simple  and 
crude  manner  the  revival  of  earthly  sovereignty.  In  this 
form  it  inspired  the  many  revolts  against  Roman  rule 
which  followed  the  organization  of  Judaea  as  a  Roman 
province,  and  expressed  itself  more  particularly  in  the 
refusal  to  pay  taxes  to  a  foreign  ruler.  A  more  ideal  repre¬ 
sentation  was  that  which  is  put  before  us  in  the  Psalms  of 
Solomon.  God  is  called  on  to  raise  up  "  their  King,  the 
Son  of  David  ”  to  reign  over  Israel  His  servant.  He  is  to 
purge  Jerusalem  from  the  heathen,  to  gather  together  a 
holy  people.  “  He  shall  possess  the  nations  of  the  heathen, 
to  serve  him  beneath  his  yoke;  and  he  shall  glorify  the 
Lord  in  a  place  to  be  seen  of  the  whole  earth.  He  shall 
purge  Jerusalem  and  make  it  holy,  even  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  old,  so  that  the  nations  may  come  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth  to  see  his  glory,  bringing  as  gifts  her  sons 
that  have  fainted.  .  .  .  There  shall  be  no  iniquity  in  those 


1  Bousset,  Die  Religion  des  Judentums,  pp.  64-71. 


10  THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

days,  for  all  shall  be  holy,  and  their  king  is  the  Lord 
Messiah.”1 

But  as  the  establishment  of  temporal  sovereignty  became 
less  possible,  there  grew  up,  especially  among  the  more 
pious  Israelites  who  repudiated  such  earthly  hopes,  a 
different  conception,  coloured  by  a  strong  and  often  extrava¬ 
gant  eschatology.  This  is  suggested  first  in  the  book  of 
Daniel,  and  was  amplified  in  the  book  of  Enoch  and  other 
apocryphal  writings.  When  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
are  warring  with  the  saints,  suddenly  the  Ancient  of  Days 
will  appear:  “And  the  kingdom  and  dominion  and  the 
greatness  of  the  kingdom  under  the  whole  heaven  shall  be 
given  to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  most  High,  whose 
kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  all  dominions 
shall  serve  and  obey  him.”2  The  coming  of  this  kingdom 
is  associated  with  the  judgement,  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked  and  the  persecutors,  and  the  reward  of  the  righteous; 
often  it  is  accompanied  with  crude  millennarian  hopes.  It 
meant  the  establishment  by  supernatural  agencies,  whether 
on  earth  or  in  heaven  or  in  a  new  earth,  of  an  ideal  kingdom 
of  righteousness  and  happiness  for  the  elect  under  the 
direct  rule  of  the  Messiah  in  the  visible  presence  of  the 
Almighty. 

While  the  aspirations  of  Israel  were  in  this  manner  being 
idealized  and  were  coming  to  be  expressed  in  a  more 
definitely  religious  fashion,  the  political  fate  of  the  nation 
was  teaching  the  same  lesson.  To  any  clear-sighted  ob¬ 
server  it  must  have  been  apparent  that  the  establishment 
of  an  earthly  Jewish  kingdom  was  not  possible.  But  it 
required  many  hard  blows  to  drive  the  lesson  home.  The 
period  of  illusion  under  the  Maccabees  was  finally  brought 
to  an  end  by  the  expedition  of  Pompey.  With  a  true 

1  Psalms  of  Solomon,  xvii.  23-44,  ed.  James  and  Ryle,  pp.  137- 
145.  On  the  expression  the  Lord  Messiah  (XpioroQ  K vpiog)  see 
the  note  ad  loc.  This  is  the  reading  of  all  Greek  manuscripts  and 
of  the  Syriac  Version.  I  notice,  however,  that  Professor  Buchanan 
Gray  in  Charles,  Apocrypha  and  Pseudepigrapha,  II.  650,  translates 
“  the  Anointed  of  the  Lord  ”  without  taking  the  trouble  to  justify 
it.  Evidence  has  little  weight  with  a  modern  critic. 

2  Dan.  vii.  27.  See  also  Regnum  Dei,  by  Archibald  Robertson, 
D.D.  [afterwards  Bishop  of  Exeter],  pp.  1-38,  39-46.  Bousset, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  185  sq. 


II 


THE  JEWS  AS  A  CHURCH 

instinct  the  more  pious  among  the  Jews  never  forgave  him, 
and  sang  a  paean  of  triumph  over  his  death:  “  God  shewed 
me  that  insolent  one  lying  pierced  upon  the  high  places  of 
Egypt,  made  of  less  account  than  him  that  is  least  in  earth 
and  sea;  even  his  dead  body  lying  corrupted  upon  the 
waves  in  great  contempt,  and  there  was  no  man  to  bury 
him.  He  said,  I  will  be  Lord  of  earth  and  sea;  and  per¬ 
ceived  not  that  it  is  God  who  is  great,  powerful  in  the  great¬ 
ness  of  his  strength.  He  is  king  over  the  heavens  and 
judgeth  kings  and  rulers.  He  it  is  that  lifteth  up  unto 
glory,  and  layeth  low  the  proud  in  eternal  destruction  and 
dishonour,  because  they  knew  him  not.”1 

Pompey  might  be  punished  for  his  insolence,  but  the 
hope  of  Israel  never  returned.  Herod’s  kingdom  was  felt 
to  be  an  illusion.  Direct  Roman  rule  was  established. 
The  Holy  People  must  pay  taxes  to  a  foreign  ruler.  The 
overthrow  of  national  hopes  in  the  great  war,  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  city,  the  final  failure  under  Barcochba,  com¬ 
pelled  the  Jews  finally  to  lay  aside  all  temporal  aspirations 
and  to  seek  their  future  in  religion  alone. 

Meanwhile  Jews  all  over  the  world  were  learning  to  live 
as  citizens  of  other  nations,  protected  by  their  laws,  often 
enjoying  special  privileges.  They  clung  to  their  traditional 
life;  they  jealously  adhered  to  their  religious  duties.  As 
the  restoration  of  Israel  as  a  people  and  a  nation  became 
more  and  more  impossible,  they  became,  in  fact  if  not  in 
name,  a  Church. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  a  Church  is  that  of  a  religious 
society  organized  apart  from  the  State.  It  involves  the 
separation  of  the  spiritual  from  the  temporal,  and  the 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  religion  to  overstep  ethnical 
and  national  bounds  and  establish  itself  on  an  international 
basis.  This  was  not  the  original  idea  of  religion.  In  the 
beginnings  of  history,  religion  seems  invariably  to  belong  to 
a  particular  tribe  or  city,  and  there  is  no  distinction  between 
the  religious  and  the  political  organization.  A  man’s 
religion  is  fixed  by  the  people  or  city  or  family  to  which 
he  belongs.  At  Rome  the  colleges  of  priests  and  augurs, 
and  the  vestal  virgins,  were  as  much  State  officials  as  the 

1  Psalms  of  Solomon  ii.  30-35. 


12 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


consuls  or  praetors.  A  rex  sacriftculus  was  necessary  because 
some  religious  ceremonies  could  only  be  performed  by  a 
king.  A  striking  illustration  is  Julius  Caesar  as  a  young 
man  becoming  Pont  if  ex  Maximus  as  a  step  of  some  impor¬ 
tance  in  a  political  career.  Even  if  foreign  cults  are  intro¬ 
duced  they  are  brought  in  as  new  developments  of  the  State 
religion. 

It  was  the  spread  of  commerce  and  the  mingling  of  nations 
resulting  from  it  that  began  to  break  down  this  conception. 
It  was  the  great  Empires  of  Alexander  and  of  Rome,  the 
destruction  of  the  old  city  communities,  and  the  change  of 
outlook  created  by  the  substitution  of  a  State  coextensive 
with  the  world  for  one  limited  to  a  few  miles  of  territory, 
that  created  the  need  for  a  new  ideal.  The  various  Eastern 
superstitions  which  became  popular  in  the  Imperial  period, 
the  worships  of  Isis  and  Osiris,  of  Cybele  and  Attis,  and 
more  particularly  that  of  Mithras,  conformed  to  a  newer 
model  and  responded  to  the  transformation  which  was 
gradually  taking  place  in  men’s  minds;  but  it  was  only  in 
Judaism,  or,  to  speak  accurately,  in  its  more  spiritual  off¬ 
spring,  Christianity,  that  the  idea  of  a  Church  was  actually 
formulated. 

There  were,  in  fact,  many  elements  in  Judaism  which 
fitted  it  for  answering  these  needs.  Originally,  Israel  had 
been  a  people  without  any  earthly  ruler,  and  this  was  never 
forgotten.  “  The  Lord  your  God  is  your  king  ”  represented 
the  prophetic  opposition  to  a  kingly  ideal.  The  same  view 
was  revived  in  the  establishment  of  the  theocracy  after  the 
exile,  and  again  when  the  Chasidim  protested  against  the 
temporal  sovereignty  of  the  Maccabean  High  Priests.  Such 
an  ideal  was  naturally  obscured  in  times  of  national  success, 
but  became  more  prominent  in  times  of  failure,  until  cir¬ 
cumstances  made  it,  for  anyone  who  could  see,  the  only 
possible  basis  for  religious  organization.  They  were  not 
to  be  a  nation  with  their  own  polity,  but  a  people  separate 
from  the  world,  living  under  the  rule  of  others,  in  many 
different  countries.  Such  a  conception  gradually  grew  up. 
It  was  expressed  in  a  number  of  theological  terms,  first 
used  by  Judaism,  later  taken  up  and  applied  to  itself  by 
the  Christian  Church. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  ISRAEL 


13 


The  normal  name  for  the  people  in  its  spiritual  aspect 
was  Israel.  “  The  portion  of  the  Lord,  and  the  inheritance 
of  God,  is  Israel  ”  ;x  “  Israel  is  the  Lord’s  portion,”  says 
the  Son  of  Sirach.2  “  Israel  is  a  holy  nation  unto  the 
Lord  its  God,  and  a  nation  of  inheritance  and  a  priestly  and 
a  royal  nation  and  for  his  own  possession.”3  The  people 
were  “  the  Saints,”  “  the  Holy  Ones.”4  So  in  Leviticus: 
"  Speak  ye  unto  all  the  congregation  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  and  say  unto  them:  Ye  shall  be  holy,  for  If  the 
Lord  your  God,  am  holy.”6  They  were  essentially  "  the 
people”  as  opposed  to  “  the  nations.”6  "  And  now  thou 
art  God  and  we  are  the  people  whom  thou  hast  loved.”7 
More  particularly  they  were  “  a  chosen  race,”8  “  a  peculiar 
people,”  “  a  royal  priesthood,”  “  an  holy  nation.”9  “  Ye 
shall  be  named  the  priests  of  Jehovah;  men  shall  call  you 
the  ministers  of  our  God.”10  This  peculiar  sanctity  and 
priesthood  was  not  the  privilege  of  any  one  tribe,  but 
belonged  to  the  whole  nation.  “  And  they  shall  be  to  me, 
saith  Jehovah  Sabaoth  in  the  day  which  I  make,  for  a 
special  possession.”11 

Now  all  these  thoughts  and  ideas  are  obviously  quite 
independent  of  any  special  secular  conditions,  and  they 
might  be  preserved  and  perpetuated  when  the  external 
circumstances  amid  which  they  arose  had  passed  away. 
They  were  adopted  by  later  Judaism  and  were  taken  over 
by  Christianity  as  claiming  to  be  the  true  Israel,12  and  were 


1  Ps.  Sol.  xiv.  3,  on  t)  pepig  teal  t)  KXijpovopia  tov  0 eov  lanv  6  ’lapatjX. 

2  Ecclus.  xvii.  17,  pepig  Kuptov  'lapatjX  lanv. 

3  Jubilees  (ed.  Charles)  xxxiii.  20. 

*  ol  llyioi.  See  Hort  on  1  Pet.  i.  15;  cf.  Ps.  Sol.  xvii.  36,  49; 
Sanday  a,nd  Headlam,  Rom.  i.  7. 

5  Lev.  xi.  44,  45,  xix. '2,  xx.  7. 

6  6  Xaog  as  opposed  to  ra  Wvtj.  See  Hort  on  1  Pet.  ii.  9. 

7  Ps.  Sol.  ix.  l6,  k ai  vvv  av  6  Qe6g,  Kai  r)pe7g  6  Xaug  ov  pya.Tn)aag . 

8  Isa.  xliii.  20,  21,  TO  ylvog  pov  rb  IicXeictov ,  Xaov  pov  ov  7repteTroir]aaptiv 
rag  dperag  pov  diriytiaQat. 

9  Exod.  xix.  5,  6,  taeaOl  poi  Xaog  Trepiovaiog  citto  ttclvtmv  tuiv  IQvCjv'  Iprj 
yap  lanv  Tvdaa  rj  yfj}  vptig  SI  taeaOl  pot  (3aaiXeiov  lepdrevpa  Kai  IQvog  ayiov. 

10  Isa.  lxi.  6,  vpeig  SI  iepeig  Kvpiov  KXtjOpaeaOe,  Xeirovpyoi  0 eov. 

11  Mai.  iii.  17,  Kai  taovraL  poi,  Xlyet  K vpiog  n avTOKparwp,  tig  t)plpav  i)v 
lyu)  7roiu)  tig  Trtpnroi-qaiv.  On  all  these  passages  see  Hort  on  1  Pet.  ii.  9. 

12  On  the  manner  in  which  the  Christian  Church  as  the  New  Israel 
succeeded  to  the  privileges  of  the  old,  see  Hamilton,  The  People  of  God 
(Oxford,  1912),  and  especially  vol.  ii.,  chap,  ii.,  “  The  New  Israel.” 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


14 

summed  up  in  the  word  ecclesia,  or  church.  Thus  was 
created  the  technical  term  for  a  religious  society  apart  from, 
and  opposed  to,  all  other  forms  of  association. 

This  word  ecclesia ,l  although  it  was  ready  to  hand,  and 
had  been  prepared  for  use,  had  not  definitely  been  employed 
with  this  meaning  before  it  was  taken  up  by  Christianity. 
Although  once  in  the  New  Testament  it  is  definitely  used 
of  the  Jewish  Church,  when  it  is  said  of  Moses,  “  This  is  he 
that  was  in  the  Church  in  the  wilderness,”  yet  there  is  no 
parallel  to  that  usage  in  purely  Jewish  writings,  and  it  is 
clear  that  Christian  conceptions  are  being  read  back  into 
pre-Christian  times. 

The  word  had  been  gradually  shaped  for  this  purpose. 
There  are  two  Hebrew  words,  ’edhah  and  qahaly 
which  are  used  in  the  Old  Testament  for  the"  assembly” 
or  "  congregation.”  The  former  was  with  some  consistency 
translated  by  the  Septuagint  synagoge,  the  latter  by  ecclesia. 
It  is  hardly  possible  in  earlier  books  to  find  any  distinction 
in  meaning  between  the  two,  but  in  later  Judaism  there  is 
some  difference.  The  word  synagoge  came  to  be  used  more 
especially  of  an  actual  body  of  people  gathered  together  in 
one  place;  the  word  ecclesia  is  used  more  particularly  of  a 
sacred  assembly,  especially  of  the  sacred  assembly  of  all 
Israel,  and  hence  of  an  assembly  in  its  ideal  aspect.  Two 
instances  may  be  quoted  illustrating  this.  In  the  Psalms 
we  read:  "  And  the  heavens  shall  declare  thy  wonders,  O 
Lord;  and  thy  truth  in  the  ecclesia  of  the  Saints  ” ;  and  in 
Ecclesiasticus :  “  Wisdom  shall  praise  herself,  and  shall 
glory  in  the  midst  of  her  people.  In  the  ecclesia  of  the 
most  High  shall  she  open  her  mouth.”2  But  the  usage  is 
not  fixed,  and  the  ultimate  distinction  of  the  words  synagoge 
and  ecclesia  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  word  synagoge 
became  the  usual  Greek  designation  for  the  building  known 
under  that  name,  and  called  in  Hebrew  keneseth.  As  the 
one  word  was  used  for  the  building,  the  other  became 
employed  to  express  the  religious  assembly  of  God’s  chosen 
people.  It  thus  acquired  the  more  abstract  and  ideal 
signification,  and  for  that  reason  was  taken  up  by  the 

1  See  Dissertation  A,  “The  History  of  the  word  t/cfcXj/ata'.” 

2  Ps.  lxxxviii.  5  [6] ;  Ecclus.  xxiv.  x,  2. 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  A  CHURCH 


15 

Christian  Church.  The  two  words,  which  had  originally 
differed  little  in  meaning,  ultimately  came  to  express  the 
two  antagonistic  ideas  of  Church  and  Synagogue. 

We  may  now  sum  up  the  results  of  this  discussion.  During 
the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era  the  old  conception  of 
a  national  religion  peculiar  to  a  city  or  people  and  distinct 
from  that  of  any  other  nation  had  ceased  to  be  really 
tenable,  and  with  it  passed  the  identity  of  the  religious 
and  secular  organization.  A  universal  State  needed  and 
created  the  conception  of  a  universal  religion,  and  a 
government,  which,  by  the  necessities  of  the  case,  was 
mainly  secular  and  normally  tolerant,  fostered  the  growth 
of  the  idea  of  a  Church  as  a  religious  society  apart  from 
a  State.  The  elements  included  in  this  idea  were:  first, 
that  a  religion  was  intended  for  others  besides  those  of  a 
particular  race  or  nation ;  that  it  was  intended  in  fact  for 
the  whole  world,  or  at  any  rate  for  the  elect  throughout 
the  world,  and  aimed  more  or  less  consciously  at  being 
universal;  and  then,  secondly,  and  as  a  necessary  conse¬ 
quence  of  this,  that  it  should  be  organized,  at  any  rate,  to 
a  certain  extent,  independently  of  the  ordinary  social, 
municipal,  and  political  life.  The  first  and  second  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era  saw  the  rise  of  various  attempts  at 
meeting  this  need.  The  cults  of  Mithras  and  of  Isis  are 
typical  of  the  efforts  which  were  then  made  with  some 
temporary  success;  but  Judaism  in  its  later  form  and 
Christianity  were  the  only  permanent  results,  and  Chris¬ 
tianity  alone  consciously  created  the  conception  known  to 
us  in  modern  times  by  the  name  of  a  Church. 

The  world  was  seeking  a  universal  religion.  It  was  only 
a  monotheism  in  some  form  which  could  meet  such  a 
demand.  Although  Judaism  believed  in  one  God  who  was 
Lord  of  the  whole  earth,  yet  it  was  hampered  by  a  rigid 
exclusiveness  which  confined  its  privileges  to  those  who 
could  claim  to  belong  to  the  chosen  race,  and  by  narrow 
nationalist  ideals,  and  it  was  unable  to  separate  its 
theological  ideas  from  the  hard  and  severe  discipline  of  the 
ceremonial  law.  Circumstances  indeed  were  suggesting 
the  abandonment  of  all  such  restrictions.  Large  numbers 
of  proselytes  had  been  made,  and  Judaism  shewed  signs  of 


i6 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


breaking  down  its  barriers.  Sensible  people  had  ceased  to 
arrange  their  lives  in  the  expectation  of  a  national  restora¬ 
tion.  But  the  actual  step  of  creating  the  idea  of  a  Church 
was  not  made.  Christianity  made  this  step,  and  absorbed 
in  itself  all  those  liberal  tendencies  which  had  begun  to 
appear,  while  Judaism  became  even  more  stereotyped. 
Ever  since  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  it  has  been  in  fact  a  Church, 
but  it  has  never  recognized  this  as  its  ideal.  It  has  not 
ceased  to  look  forward  to  a  restored  Jewish  State.  It  has 
remained  exclusive,  isolated,  unchanging. 

Christianity  grasped  the  idea  and  fixed  the  name.  The 
word  was  ready  to  hand.  It  had  acquired  a  spiritual 
meaning,  but  it  had  never  been  used  in  its  technical  signifi¬ 
cation.  As  employed  by  Christianity  the  word  ecclesia 
embodied  a  new  conception  for  which  the  world  was  ready, 
which  was  the  spiritual  fulfilment  of  principles  innate  in 
Judaism,  and  awaiting  development;  which  only  came 
into  being  in  the  new  life  and  revelation  through  Jesus 
Christ.1 

II 

We  have  now  to  approach  what  will  be  found  to  be  a 
more  difficult  problem.  In  what  sense  and  to  what  extent 
did  our  Lord  found  a  Church  ?  At  first  sight  the  inquiry 
may  seem  unnecessary.  It  is  recorded  of  our  Lord  that 
on  one  of  the  most  impressive  occasions  of  His  life  He  said : 
“  On  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church.”2  Such  a  state¬ 
ment  must  surely  solve  the  problem.  Unfortunately  it 
does  not  do  so  in  the  opinion  of  certain  scholars.  It  is 
argued  that  this  and  other  passages  which  might  seem 
to  point  to  the  same  conclusion  are  not  original,  but 
represent  a  later  recension  of  the  Gospel  story.  They 
came  into  the  narrative  as  a  justification  of  more  developed 
ecclesiastical  conditions,  not,  it  would  be  argued,  by  any 

1  The  idea  of  the  Jewish  ecclesia  is  brought  out  by  Bousset  (op. 
cit.,  pp.  54  sq.,  Die  Entwickelung  der  Jiidischen  Frommigheit  zur 
Kirche),  but  he  fails  to  realize  (i)  that  although  the  conception 
was  post-exilic,  yet  it  was  possible,  owing  to  tendencies  in  pre- 
exilic  Judaism;  (2)  that  even  after  the  exile  the  realization  was 

gractical  rather  than  theoretical.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Judaism 
as  become  a  church,  but  it  has  never  realized  the  idea  of  a  church. 

2  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18. 


CRITICAL  PRINCIPLES 


*7 

conscious  process  of  fraud,  but  by  the  inevitable  tendency 
of  an  unwritten  tradition  gradually  to  modify  itself  in 
accordance  with  the  desires  of  those  who  report  it.  It 
would  be  maintained  that  a  study  of  the  narrative  would 
shew  that  there  was  not  in  our  Lord’s  life  and  teaching  any 
contemplation  of  such  a  development.  Either  it  would  be 
held  that  He  expected  so  near  a  coming  of  the  end  of  all 
things  that  the  creation  of  a  society  would  be  entirely 
unnecessary,  or  that  He  taught  a  simple  ethic  with  which 
anything  like  ecclesiasticism  was  entirely  inconsistent.  The 
Church,  it  would  be  maintained,  grew  up  through  other 
influences,  partly  through  the  survival  of  just  those  elements 
of  Judaism  most  inconsistent  with  the  Gospel,  partly 
through  the  corrupting  influence  of  Hellenism.  In  any  case 
it  does  not  represent  our  Lord’s  teaching  in  any  way,  and 
all  passages  with  an  ecclesiastical  flavour  are  the  product 
of  the  Church  and  not  of  its  Founder.1 

Another  point  of  view  would  be  that  the  development 
was  entirely  healthy  and  right,  that  it  was  indeed  part  of 
the  divine  purpose,  but  that  no  such  idea  could  be  found 
in  the  genuine  words  of  our  Lord,  or  was  part  of  His  con¬ 
scious  purpose.  His  own  aims  were  entirely  limited.  He 
had  indeed  sown  the  seed,  and  the  seed  had  grown  into  a 
great  tree;  but  as  He  died  before  the  seed  began  to  grow, 
we  cannot  ascribe  any  of  the  characteristics  of  the  tree  to 
His  work.2 

It  will  be  apparent,  I  think,  on  examination,  that  all 
these  theories  labour  under  serious  logical  defects.  How 
are  these  conceptions  of  our  Lord’s  teaching  formed  ?  In 
the  only  way  possible,  by  a  study  of  the  Gospels — that  is, 

1  An  admirable  example  of  such  views  will  be  found  in  the  article 

“  Ministry/'  by  Professor  P.  W.  Schmiedel,  of  Zurich,  in  the  Encyclo¬ 
paedia  Biblica,  iii.  3101-3103.  “  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 

suppose  that  Jesus  Himself  founded  a  new  religious  community.” 
It  is  very  doubtful  whether  our  Lord  called  the  disciples  "  Apostles 
He  certainly  did  not  do  so  as  conferring  on  them  a  particular  rank. 
The  commission  of  binding  and  loosing  in  the  sense  of  non-forgive¬ 
ness  and  forgiveness  of  sins  is  in  the  mouth  of  our  Lord  impossible, 
as  also  is  almost  all  the  address  to  St.  Peter  (St.  Matt.  xvi.  18).  This 
is  shewn  by  His  use  of  the  word  ecclesia.  “  Baptism  and  the  repeti¬ 
tion  of  the  Last  Supper  were  no  ordinances  of  Jesus.”  “  The  con¬ 
clusion  of  the  parable  of  the  Tares  does  not  come  from  Jesus.” 

2  This  would  represent  the  view  of  M.  Loisy,  at  any  rate  when 
he  wrote  L’Evangile  et  VEglise. 


2 


i8 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


by  a  study  of  those  portions  of  the  Gospels  that  support 
such  a  view.  Each  theory  is  based  upon  a  portion  of  the 
material ;  and  we  ask  whether  there  is  any  external  evidence 
which  enables  us  to  distinguish  that  portion  which  is  regarded 
as  authentic  and  trustworthy.  Are  there  any  reasons  of 
an  objective  character  sufficient  to  distinguish  the  two  strata 
of  the  Gospels  ?  It  seems  somewhat  difficult  to  find  any. 
Criticism  such  as  this  in  fact  labours  under  the  disadvan¬ 
tage  that  it  constructs  its  theory  from  a  portion  of  the 
evidence,  and  dismisses  the  remainder  only  because  it  does 
not  harmonize  with  its  theory — a  somewhat  circular  method 
of  argument.  This  defect  of  method  becomes  apparent 
from  a  comparison  of  different  modern  writers.  The 
liberal  rationalistic  school  would  consider  that  the  principal 
eschatological  passages  of  the  Gospel  are  later  interpola¬ 
tions,  while  the  new  eschatological  school  would  consider 
them  the  most  authentic  portion  of  our  Lord’s  sayings.  So 
Harnack  based  his  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  a 
passage  which  Loisy  maintained  was  certainly  not  authentic.1 

The  method  pursued  is  in  fact  hardly  scientific.  Yet  it 
is  not  possible  to  deny  the  possibility  of  interpolation,  or 
of  our  Lord’s  words  as  reported  having  been  influenced 
by  later  conditions.  This  would  be  particularly  the  case 
in  regard  to  isolated  sayings.  A  more  careful  investiga¬ 
tion  is  therefore  necessary,  one  which  will  enable  us  to 
get  a  deeper  insight  into  our  Lord’s  methods.  Such  an 
investigation  I  propose  to  make.  The  critical  position 
adopted  is  that  in  the  bulk  of  the  subject-matter  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  we  have  our  Lord’s  words  as  they  were 
reported  among  the  first  generations  of  Christians;  that 
they  were  reduced  to  writing  certainly  before  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem,  and  probably  considerably  earlier;  that  the 
Gospels  existed  in  their  present  form  in  any  case  before 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  probably  twenty  or  thirty 
years  earlier.  We  cannot  have  any  certainty  that  we 
possess  in  every  case  the  exact  words  of  our  Lord ;  yet  the 
substantial  accuracy  of  the  record  of  His  teaching,  and  the 
correct  presentation  of  His  religious  conceptions,  need  not 
be  doubted. 


1  Loisy,  op.  cit.,  pp,  54-56. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN 


19 


It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  I  propose  to  examine  the 
teaching  of  the  Gospels,  and  to  inquire  what  evidence  they 
give  as  to  the  relation  of  our  Lord  to  the  formation  of  the 
Christian  society.1  I  propose  to  avoid  relying  on  isolated 
passages  and  special  texts,  and  to  examine  the  general 
tendency  of  our  Lord’s  teaching.  If  we  find  that  the  more 
definite  sayings  are  in  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  teaching 
it  will  be  a  reasonable  deduction  that  they  are  genuine. 
Having  thus  obtained  some  idea  of  what  the  Gospels  teach, 
I  shall  ask  whether  it  takes  its  place  naturally  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  Christian  life  and  doctrine.  If  it  does  so,  if  the 
conception  thus  formed  gives  a  natural  cause  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  Christian  society,  then  it  will  be  in  accordance 
with  good  criticism  to  accept  it  as  genuine. 

Ill 

The  expression  most  commonly  used  by  our  Lord  to 
express  His  teaching  is  that  of  the  “  kingdom  of  God,”  or, 
more  correctly, “  the  rule  or  sovereignty  of  God.”2  Synony¬ 
mous  with  this  is  the  expression  used  in  the  First  Gospel, 
the  “kingdom  of  heaven,”  the  word  “heaven”  being  a 
common  paraphrase  employed  to  avoid  the  sacred  name.3 

1  The  work  which  I  found  most  helpful  in  this  investigation  was 
Hort’s  Christian  Ecclesia.  A  large  part  of  what  follows  is  taken 
from  an  article  of  my  own  in  the  Church  Quarterly  Review  for  Janu¬ 
ary,  1905,  vol.  lix.,  No.  1 18,  pp.  257-285,  “  The  Christian  Society. 
II.  The  Teaching  of  our  Lord.” 

2  On  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  see  Dissertation  B,  where  the 
meaning  of  each  separate  passage  where  the  word  is  used  is  dis¬ 
cussed.  For  a  full  philosophical  presentment  of  it  see  Robertson’s 
Regnum  Dei. 

3  On  these  terms  see  particularly  Dalman,  The  Words  of  Jesus, 
pp.  91-147,  E.T.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  meaning  of 
1)  (3(Hn\ELa  tu >v  ovpavojv  is  the  Same  as  that  Of  r)  fSaaiXsia  tov  Oeov, 
the  former  being  the  Jewish  expression,  modified  in  St.  Mark  and 
St.  Luke  to  suit  Greek  readers.  “  Jesus  will  have  preferred  the 
popular  expression  because  He  also  readily  abstained  from  the  use 
of  the  divine  name  ”  (pp.  93,  94).  On  the  meaning  of  the  expression 
Dalman  writes:  “  No  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  both  in  the 

Old  Testament  and  in  Jewish  literature  ndpa  when  applied  to 

God  means  always  the  ‘  kingly  rule,’  never  the  ‘  kingdom.’  .  .  . 
It  is  more  correct  to  regard,  with  B.  Weiss,  as  fundamental,  the 
meaning  ‘  the  full  realization  of  the  sovereignty  of  God,’  so  as  never 
to  lose  sight  of  the  starting-point.” 


20 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


This  expression  first  demands  our  examination,  all  the  more 
because  it  has  been  taken  (as,  for  example,  by  St.  Augustine) 
as  simply  identical  with  “  the  Church.”  That  this  is  so 
cannot  be  maintained.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  means 
much  more  than  the  Church,  it  is  a  term  of  wider  significa¬ 
tion;  but  there  is  a  close  connection  between  the  two.  For 
example,  when  our  Lord,  addressing  St.  Peter,  speaks  of 
the  founding  of  His  Church,  He  is  represented  by  the  author 
of  the  First  Gospel  as  immediately  adding  the  words,  “  I 
will  give  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.”  What 
meaning,  then,  is  to  be  ascribed  to  this  expression  “  the 
kingdom  of  God  ”  as  used  in  the  Gospels  P1 

The  primary  signification  was  the  divine  theocracy,  the 
rule  of  God  as  opposed  to  that  of  the  powers  of  evil  or  the 
sovereigns  of  the  world.  Although  the  exact  expression 
does  not  occur  in  the  Old  Testament  the  idea  which  it 
represents  is  common.  Israel  was  to  live  under  the  direct 
rule  of  Jehovah;  the  people  of  Israel  were  to  obey  His  law; 
the  establishment  of  this  kingdom  would  mean  the  over¬ 
throw  and  subjection  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  This 
had  become  part  of  the  current  thought  of  the  day.  The 

1  Cf.  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  pp.  18,  19:  "  One  large  depart¬ 
ment  of  our  Lord’s  teaching  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  it  directly 
belonged  to  our  subject,  may,  I  believe,  be  safely  laid  aside.  In 
the  verse  following  that  which  we  have  been  considering  [Matt, 
xvi.  18]  our  Lord  says  to  St.  Peter,  ‘  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.'  Without  going  into  details  of  inter¬ 
pretation,  we  can  at  once  see  that  the  relation  between  the  two 
verses  implies  some  important  relation  between  the  Ecclesia  and 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven:  but  the  question  is,  what  relation  ?  The 
simplest  inference  from  the  language  used  would  be  that  the  office 
committed  to  St.  Peter  and  the  rest  with  respect  to  the  Ecclesia, 
would  enable  him  and  them  to  fulfil  the  office  here  described  as 
committed  to  him,  with  respect  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  But 
the  question  is  whether  this  is  a  sufficient  account  of  the  matter. 
Since  Augustine’s  time  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  or  Kingdom  of  God, 
of  which  we  read  so  often  in  the  Gospels,  has  been  simply  identified 
with  the  Christian  Ecclesia.  This  is  not  an  unnatural  deduction 
from  some  of  our  Lord’s  sayings  on  this  subject  taken  by  them¬ 
selves;  but  it  cannot,  I  think,  hold  its  ground  when  the  whole  range 
of  His  teaching  about  it  is  comprehensively  examined.  We  may 
speak  of  the  Ecclesia  as  the  visible  representative  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  or  as  the  primary  instrument  of  its  sway,  or  under  other 
analogous  forms  of  language.  But  we  are  not  justified  in  identi¬ 
fying  the  one  with  the  other,  so  as  to  be  able  to  apply  directly  to 
the  Ecclesia  whatever  is  said  in  the  Gospels  about  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  or  of  God.” 


THE  KINGDOM  AND  ETERNAL  LIFE 


21 


exact  form  which  the  expectation  took  might  vary,  but  it 
was  always  associated  with  limited  national  aims  and  often 
with  crude  eschatological  hopes.  It  will  always  seem  re¬ 
markable  to  anyone  acquainted  with  contemporary  thought 
how  completely  this  nationalism  has  been  eliminated  from 
our  Lord’s  teaching.  He  undoubtedly  uses  eschatological 
language,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  He  employed 
it  in  a  purely  literal  signification.  What  He  did  was, 
discarding  all  limited  conceptions,  to  make  use  of  the 
expression  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ”  as  the  vehicle  of  a 
profound  moral  teaching,  of  inaugurating  new  conditions 
under  which  man  was  to  dwell  upon  the  earth,  and  of 
expressing  in  its  most  spiritual  form  the  hope  of  future 
happiness  offered  to  mankind. 

The  Jew  had  looked  forward  to  the  establishment  at  some 
future  time  of  the  visible  manifestation  of  divine  power  in 
the  world.  His  conception  was  definitely  eschatological. 
So  the  kingdom  of  God  means  that  final  realization  of  the 
divine  rule  for  each  individual,  which  was  also,  and  especi¬ 
ally  in  St.  John’s  Gospel,  called  “  eternal  life.”  The  king¬ 
dom  of  heaven  is  something  which  is  to  come.  The  righteous 
are  to  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  them  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  ;x  they  shall  shine  forth  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  the  Father.2  It  is  for  this  coming  of  the 
kingdom — that  is,  for  the  complete  fulfilment  of  God’s  will 
— that  men  are  to  pray.3  But  this  interpretation  does 
not  exhaust  the  meaning  of  the  word  as  used  by  our  Lord. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  spoken  of  as  present.  “  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  you.”4  “  From  the  days  of 
John  the  Baptist  until  now  the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffereth 
violence.”5  “  But  if  I  in  the  spirit  of  God  cast  out  devils, 
then  is  the  kingdom  of  God  come  upon  you.”6  In  many 
of  the  parables  also  by  which  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  is 
illustrated  it  is  represented  as  something  already  begun. 
The  divine  theocracy,  then,  can  be  spoken  of  as  something 
already  present,  yet  to  come,  a  system  as  yet  imperfectly 
realized,  to  be  more  completely  fulfilled  in  the  future. 
Occasionally  it  seems  as  if  this  imperfect  condition  were 

1  St.  Matt.  xxv.  34.  2  St.  Matt.  xiii.  43.  3  St.  Matt.  vi.  10. 

4  St.  Luke  xvii.  20,  21.  5  St.  Matt.  xi.  12.  6  St.  Matt.  xii.  28. 


22 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


represented  as  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  in  contrast  to 
the  complete  consummation  of  the  kingdom  of  God:  "  The 
Son  of  Man  shall  send  forth  his  angels  and  they  shall  gather 
out  of  his  kingdom  all  things  that  cause  stumbling  .  .  . 
then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom 
of  their  Father.”1  So  our  Lord  says  to  the  Twelve:  “  I 
will  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  even  as  my  Father 
appointed  unto  me.”2  He  speaks  of,  and  His  disciples 
expect,  His  kingdom,3  and  it  is  this  expectation  which 
seems  to  be  interpreted  by  St.  Paul  when  he  says:  “  Then 
cometh  the  end,  when  he  shall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to 
God,  even  the  Father.  .  .  .  For  he  must  reign,  until  he 
hath  put  all  his  enemies  under  his  feet.”4 

Our  Lord,  then,  was  inaugurating  a  system  of  divine  rule 
or  sovereignty  as  opposed  both  to  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  to  the  kingdom  of  evil,  a  rule  already  beginning 
and  leading  to  a  more  perfect  consummation  in  the  future. 
This  sovereignty  was  to  consist  in  the  sway  of  the  divine 
law  in  men’s  hearts;  “  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness.”6  The  entrance  into  this  kingdom 
is  dependent  upon  conforming  to  its  laws:  “  Whosoever 
shall  not  receive  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  he 
shall  in  no  wise  enter  therein.”6  Now  those  persons  in 
whose  hearts  God  has  power  and  who  have  consciously 
accepted  His  rule  become  by  so  doing  the  subjects  of  the 
kingdom,  “  the  sons  of  the  kingdom.”7  Such  a  body  of 
men  so  bound  together  by  accepting  a  common  law  suggests 
at  once  the  idea  of  a  society. 

A  closer  investigation  will  corroborate  this  impression. 
A  series  of  terms  are  used  which  have  a  meaning  only  in 
relation  to  a  society.  Our  Lord  speaks  of  the  “  greatest  ” 
and  “  least  ”  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.8  “  He  that  is 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he.”9  It 
is  something  that  people  attain  to  and  enter  into.10  It 

1  St.  Matt.  xiii.  41-43.  3  St.  Luke  xxii.  29;  cf.  xii.  32. 

3  St.  Matt.  xx.  21;  St.  Luke  xxii.  30,  xxiii.  42. 

4  1  Cor.  xv.  24,  25.  On  this  subject  see  Dalman,  The  Words  of 
Jesus,  pp.  133,  134;  Robertson,  Regnum  Dei,  pp.  54  sq.,  71  sq. 

5  St.  Matt.  vi.  33.  6  St.  Mark  x.  15.  7  St.  Matt.  xiii.  38. 

8  St.  Matt.  v.  19.  9  St.  Matt.  xi.  n. 

10  St.  Matt.  v.  20,  vii.  21,  xix.  23,  xxi.  31;  St.  Luke  xviii.  24,  25. 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


*3 


may  be  closed  against  others.  Men  may  be  cast  out  from 
it.  St.  Peter  is  said  to  have  the  keys  of  it.1  Of  the 
Pharisees  it  is  said:  “Ye  shut  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against 
men :  for  ye  enter  not  in  yourselves,  neither  suffer  ye  those 
that  are  entering  in  to  enter.”2  Now  if  in  some  cases  these 
expressions  might  refer  to  the  final  manifestation  of  the 
kingdom,  in  others  they  clearly  do  not.  The  type  of  society 
is  not  defined.  Sometimes  the  language  is  metaphorical. 
The  terms  do,  however,  imply  a  sphere  in  which  men  will 
be  associated  with  others  as  recognizing  the  sovereignty  of 
God,  and  having  the  privileges  thus  conferred. 

A  similar  conception  is  implied  in  the  passages  which 
represent  our  Lord  as  a  new  lawgiver.  Moses  had  given 
laws  for  the  old  theocracy  which  were  accepted  as  the  direct 
revelation  of  God’s  will.  It  is  one  of  the  most  startling 
points  in  the  claim  of  our  Lord  that  He  took  upon  Himself 
to  give  a  new  system  of  ethics,  a  natural  development 
indeed  of  the  old  system,  but  definitely  contrasted  with  it 
and  intended  to  supersede  it.  It  is  conceivable  that  this 
system  might  represent  only  the  moral  principles  which  a 
man  must  accept  if  he  acknowledges  God’s  sovereignty  in 
his  heart.  But  on  being  examined  it  is  found  to  deal  not 
only  with  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  not  only  with  the 
relation  of  man  to  the  world  apart  from  God,  but  also  with 
a  special  relation  to  others,  who  are  in  the  same  peculiar 
relation  to  God  and  who  are  described  as  “  brethren.” 
When  our  Lord  gives  the  series  of  directions  about  being 
angry  with  a  brother,  and  so  on,  He  is  conceiving  that  those 
whom  He  addresses  and  who  are  to  obey  the  laws  of  the 
theocracy  will  be  members  of  the  kingdom,  having  definite 
fraternal  relations  with  other  members  of  the  kingdom.3 

The  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  were  most  clearly  ex¬ 
pounded  by  our  Lord  in  a  long  series  of  parables.  Some 
of  these  put  forth  the  privileges  of  the  kingdom,  others  the 
duties;  others,  again,  seem  to  represent  it  as  a  society  in 
which  good  and  evil  are  mingled  together,  a  society  such 
as  a  visible  Church  might  be.  In  the  parable  of  the  Tares, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  represented  as  a  community  of 

1  St.  Matt.  xvi.  19.  2  St.  Matt,  xxiii.  13. 

3  St.  Matt.  v.  22,  vii.  3,  4,  5,  xviii.  15,  21,  35. 


24 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


good  and  evil  men  living  together  in  the  world  at  present 
undistinguishable,  or  at  any  rate  with  difficulty  distin¬ 
guishable,  one  from  another.  Out  of  these,  described  as  the 
kingdom  of  the  Son,  the  evil  will  be  plucked  at  the  end  of 
the  world,  and  in  the  purified  kingdom  of  the  Father,  the 
good  will  shine  forth  as  the  sun.1  A  similar  conception  is 
suggested  by  the  Draw-net.2  Two  other  parables  seem 
even  more  suggestive.  In  the  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven, 
the  external  and  internal  growth  of  the  kingdom  is  pictured. 
The  most  obvious  interpretation  that  can  be  given  them 
is  that  while  the  one  represents  the  silent  and  secret  growth 
of  ideas  in  men’s  hearts,  the  other  pictures  it  as  a  great 
and  visible  society  growing  in  the  world  capable  of  giving 
rest  and  shelter  as  do  the  branches  of  the  tree.3 

The  divine  theocracy  in  the  Old  Testament  was  a  society. 
The  words  used  by  our  Lord  to  convey  His  teaching  in¬ 
evitably  suggest  men  united  together  as  subjects  of  a  king. 
The  language  used  would  be  evacuated  of  much  of  its 
meaning  if  no  Christian  society  were  contemplated.  This 
society  was  not  identical  with  the  kingdom,  but  repre¬ 
sented  the  kingdom  in  process  of  creation.  But  our  Lord 
as  represented  in  the  Gospels  uses  language  which  implies 
that  those  who  accepted  His  teaching  were  to  be  united 
together  in  a  community  in  which  they  should  receive  even 
in  this  life  some  of  the  privileges  which  He  promised,  and 
should  exercise  the  righteousness  which  He  enjoined,  and 
that  community  is  represented  by  the  Christian  Church. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  as  strange  that  the  “  king¬ 
dom  ” — an  expression  used  with  such  frequency  in  the 
Gospels — should  be  found  so  little  in  other  books  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  may  throw  some  light  on  our  inquiry 
if  we  investigate  this  point  shortly.  Our  Lord  used  this 
word  to  describe  His  message  because  it  was  current  among 
the  Jews.  They  expected  the  Messiah;  they  expected  that 
he  would  inaugurate  the  kingdom.  Jesus  came  as  the 
Messiah  and  gave  quite  a  new  meaning  to  the  kingdom. 
So  long  as  the  Gospel  was  addressed  only  to  Jews,  the 
language  would  be  adequate  and  valuable,  but  when  the 

1  St.  Matt.  xiii.  24-30,  36-43.  3  St.  Matt.  xiii.  47-50. 

3  St.  Matt.  xiii.  31-33.  ~ 


THE  KINGDOM  INTERPRETED 


25 

disciples  began  to  preach  to  Gentiles  it  was  necessary  to 
interpret  it.  There  was  even  danger  attached  to  it.  It 
was  quite  capable  of  being  taken  to  mean  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  implied  a  political  revolution.1 

Now  most  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  were 
written  for  Gentile  readers,  and  therefore  in  most  of  them 
the  process  of  interpretation  has  begun.  The  Synoptic 
Gospels,  being  as  they  profess  to  be  historical  records  of 
our  Lord’s  teaching,  generally  preserve  the  original  phrase¬ 
ology,  and  this  is  strong  evidence  of  their  authenticity. 
The  remaining  books  interpret,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
observe  the  manner  in  which  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  is 
dissolved  into  its  different  elements.  In  St.  John’s  Gospel 
the  idea  most  prominent  is  that  of  “  eternal  life,”  which 
expresses  in  more  modern  phraseology  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  thoughts  included  under  the  conception  of  the 
kingdom.  It  is  noticeable,  also,  how  exactly  St.  John 
preserves  the  meaning  of  our  Lord’s  teaching;  for  “life” 
with  him  means  not  merely  something  which  is  to  be  gained 
hereafter,  but  something  which  is  enjoyed  now,  just  as  the 
kingdom  is  something  which  is  inaugurated  now,  although 
its  completion  will  only  come  hereafter.  "  He  that  belie veth 
hath  eternal  life.”2  “  He  that  eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh 
my  blood  hath  eternal  life;  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the 
last  day.”3  But,  again,  the  kingdom  meant  the  sway  of 
God’s  laws  in  men’s  hearts,  and  as  such  it  was  represented 
and  interpreted  by  the  great  Pauline  idea  of  “  righteous¬ 
ness.”4  “  Seek  ye  first,”  said  our  Lord,  "  God’s  kingdom 
and  his  righteousness.”6  "  The  kingdom  of  God,”  said 
St.  Paul,  "  is  righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost.”6  But  then  again  the  kingdom  of  God  carried 
on  and  reasserted  the  idea  involved  in  the  old  theocracy 
of  the  “  people  of  God,”  those  who  were  bound  together 
as  the  subjects  of  His  laws  and  for  that  reason  attached 
to  Him  and  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  As  such 

1  Cf.  Acts  xvii.  7  with  1  Thess.  ii.  12. 

2  St.  John  vi.  47.  3  St.  John  vi.  54. 

4  See  “  St.  Paul’s  Equivalent  for  the  *  Kingdom  of  Heaven/  ” 
by  W.  Sanday,  D.D.,  in  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  i.,  481  (July, 
1900). 

5  St.  Matt.  vi.  33.  6  Rom.  xiv.  17. 


26 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


it  found  its  interpretation  in  the  spiritual  Israel,  the  Christian 
Church.  And  just  as  eternal  life  was  something  which 
was  partly  realized  here,  although  the  fulness  was  only 
to  come  hereafter,  just  as  the  righteousness  of  earth 
is  only  a  faint  shadow  of  the  righteousness  in  heaven,  so 
the  Christian  Church,  imperfect  upon  earth,  will  only  attain 
its  completion  hereafter.  All  these  ideas  alike  reflect  the 
characteristics  of  the  kingdom  or  sovereignty  of  God,  that 
it  was  to  be  only  partially  realized  on  earth,  but  was  to 
wait  for  its  complete  consummation  in  the  heavens.1 

Such  I  would  put  before  you  as  the  explanation  of  that 
complex  thought,  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Those  of  you 
who  are  acquainted  with  certain  forms  of  modern  criticism 
will  be  aware  that  one  school  would  interpret  it  only  in 
an  eschatological  sense.  They  would  hold  that  the  only 
meaning  it  could  have  to  our  Lord  was  that  at  some  period' 
not  very  remote  would  come  the  final  end  of  this  world- 
age,  that  the  Messiah  would  come  in  majesty  and  destroy 
all  earthly  kingdoms  and  establish  on  earth  a  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Some  would  modify  this  so  far  as  to  believe  that 
what  our  Lord  was  really  teaching  in  a  symbolical  manner 
was  a  doctrine  of  “  eternal  life.”  But  any  other  meaning 
would,  they  hold,  be  in  the  mouth  of  our  Lord  an  ana¬ 
chronism. 

Now  the  difficulties  of  such  a  narrow  interpretation  are 
two.  The  one  is  that  it  compels  us  to  do  such  violence  to 
the  records  that  we  possess.  It  obliges  us  either  to  give 
a  forced  and  unnatural  meaning  to  many  of  the  passages  in 
the  Gospels  where  the  phrase  occurs,  or,  as  the  more  common 
expedient,  to  deny  that  they  were  spoken  by  our  Lord. 
Even  if  such  violent  methods  might  be  justified,  the  diffi¬ 
culty  would  still  be  great  because,  according  to  these  same 
critics,  the  early  Christian  community  also  believed  in  the 

1  See  Robertson,  Regnum  Dei,  p.  98:  "The  Church  stands  in  a 
more  direct  relation  to  the  Mediatorial  Kingdom  of  Christ;  but 
here,  too,  the  two  things  are  not  convertible;  the  Church  is  an 
instrument,  the  chief  instrument,  of  the  Reign  of  Christ,  it  is  its 
principal  sphere,  and  aims  at  worthily  embodying  it  in  the  sight  of 
men.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  simply  an  idea,  nor  simply  an 
institution,  but  a  Life,  and  of  that  Life — the  Christian  Life— the 
Church  is  the  nurse  and  home.” 


THE  DISCIPLES 


27 


near  approach  of  the  Parousia,  and  therefore  the  more 
profound  conceptions  of  the  kingdom  would  be  as  impossible 
for  them  as  for  our  Lord. 

A  second  difficulty  is  that  if  you  evacuate  the  teaching  of 
our  Lord  of  all  its  most  original  and  impressive  charac¬ 
teristics,  if  you  imagine  that  it  did  not  exceed  in  intelligence 
the  work  of  a  third-rate  apocalyptist,  it  becomes  exceed¬ 
ingly  difficult  to  explain  the  message  of  the  Gospel,  the 
rise  of  Christianity  and  of  the  Christian  Church. 

I  would  therefore  put  before  you  that  such  critical 
methods  are  unscientific  and  that  such  a  narrow  interpre¬ 
tation  of  our  Lord’s  words  entirely  fails  to  represent  His 
Gospel.  It  may  be  doubted  indeed  whether  even  among 
the  Jews  the  Kingdom  and  the  Parousia  were  normally 
interpreted  with  such  a  crude  literalism.  In  all  ages  the 
language  describing  religious  hopes  of  the  hereafter  has ' 
been  symbolical  and  imaginative.  Our  Lord  starts  from 
the  popular  conception.  He  uses  it  to  teach  His  message. 
He  would  teach  us  the  universal  claims  of  God’s  rule. 
Every  man  must  let  God  rule  in  his  heart.  That  was  the 
fundamental  law  of  life.  He  foresaw  the  contest  between 
the  rule  of  God  and  the  rule  of  the  world,  His  own  death, 
the  labours  and  sufferings  of  His  disciples.  Again  and  again 
in  His  parables  He  taught  that  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 
in  its  completeness  was  a  long  process.  He  conceived  His 
followers  bound  together  in  a  common  society  as  a  prepara¬ 
tion  for  the  kingdom.  The  final  coming  of  the  kingdom 
for  each  one  would  be  in  eternal  life.  Righteousness,  the 
Church,  Eternal  Life.  Thus  the  kingdom  would  come. 

IV 

If  the  foundation  of  a  religious  society  was  part  of  our 
Lord’s  plan  and  purpose,  in  what  sense  and  to  what  extent 
did  He  carry  it  out  ?  He  did  not  directly  found  the  Church. 
History  shews,  as  theology  has  always  taught,  that  this 
was  the  work  of  the  Apostles.  But  He  prepared  for  it. 
He  collected  round  Himself  a  body  of  disciples,1  who  had 

1  Cf.  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  pp.  19,  20:  “Wherever  we 
find  disciples  and  discipleship  in  the  Gospels,  there  we  are  dealing 
with  what  was  a  direct  preparation  for  the  founding  of  the  Ecclesia. 


28 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


obeyed  His  command  to  follow  Him.  In  attachment  to 
His  person  He  gave  them  a  principle  of  union.  More  than 
this,  He  selected  twelve  to  be  His  particular  companions. 
To  His  disciples  and  His  apostles  He  gave  a  commission 
which  implied  an  extension  of  work  after  He  was  taken 
from  them.  He  gave  to  the  community  spiritual  authority. 

Our  Lord  formed  a  body  of  disciples.  They  were  attached 
to  Him  in  a  special  sense,  and  were  contrasted  with  the 
crowd  of  mere  hearers  who  followed  Him  only  for  a  time.* 1 
We  have  no  definite  information  about  their  number, 
but  they  were  probably  never  very  numerous.2  He 
raised  waves  of  popular  enthusiasm,  but  they  were  transient. 
Much  of  His  teaching  was  difficult,  unattractive,  even 
deterrent.  He  seemed  to  prevent  men  from  coming  to 
Him  too  easily;  He  sifted  and  tried  them.  No  man  who 
was  not  prepared  to  bear  his  cross  could  be  His  disciple.3 

If  we  ask  what  were  the  conditions  of  discipleship,  we 
shall  find  that  while  there  is,  as  always  in  our  Lord’s  teach¬ 
ing,  a  complete  absence  of  rules  or  regulations,  the  funda¬ 
mental  qualification  is  clear.  It  is  attachment  to  Himself. 
“  But  Jesus  looked  at  him  and  loved  him,  and  said  to  him: 
One  thing  thou  lackest :  go  thy  way,  sell  all  thou  hast  and 
give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven, 


We  all  know  how  much  more  this  word  ‘  disciples  ’  sometimes  means 
in  the  Gospels  than  admiring  and  affectionate  hearers,  though  that 
forms  a  part  of  it;  how  a  closer  personal  relation  is  further  involved 
in  it,  for  discipleship  takes  various  forms  and  passes  through  various 
stages.  Throughout  there  is  devotion  to  the  Lord,  found  at  last 
to  be  no  mere  superior  Rabbi,  but  a  true  Lord  of  the  spirit;  and 
along  with  and  arising  out  of  this  devotion  there  is  a  growing  sense 
of  brotherhood  between  disciples.” 

1  Cf.  St.  Matt.  xiii.  36,  xiv.  19. 

2  There  seem  to  be  few  data  for  arriving  at  the  number  of  our 
Lord’s  disciples.  We  are  told  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  in  a  passage 
which  suggests  that  baptism  was  the  external  sign  of  discipleship 
(St.  John  iv.  1),  that  Jesus  at  the  beginning  of  His  ministry  made 
and  baptized  more  disciples  than  John;  but  later  we  are  told  in  the 
same  Gospel  that  many  of  His  disciples  left  Him  (St.  John  vi.  66). 
The  highest  definite  number  in  the  Gospels  is  that  of  the  seventy 
mentioned  in  St.  Luke  (St.  Luke  x.  1),  an  incident  which  there  are  no 
sufficient  grounds  for  doubting,  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive 
any  reason  for  its  invention.  The  number  of  names  mentioned  in 
the  Acts  after  the  Ascension  is  one  hundred  and  twenty  (Acts  i.  15) 
assembled  in  Jerusalem,  and  St.  Paul  records  an  appearance  of  our 
Lord  to  over  five  hundred  brethren  at  once  (1  Cor.  xv.  6). 

3  St.  Luke  xiv.  27. 


THE  TWELVE 


29 

and  come,  follow  me.”1  “  Then  Jesus  said  to  his  dis¬ 

ciples:  If  any  one  wishes  to  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me.”2  “  Follow 
me  ”3  is  the  constant  note.  Those  who  confess  Him,  He 
will  confess  before  His  Father  in  heaven.4  Those  who  are 
not  offended  in  Him  are  blessed.6  Men  are  bidden  leave 
all  their  possessions  for  His  name’s  sake. 

To  those  thus  attached  to  His  person,  He  teaches  a  new 
life,  and  He  makes  His  name  a  bond  of  union  among  them. 
He  addressed  them  as  His  flock.  “  Fear  not,  little  flock, 
for  your  Father  is  pleased  to  give  you  the  kingdom.”6 
After  His  death  His  followers  will  continue  as  a  society 
bound  together  in  His  name,  hated  and  persecuted  of 
others.  Although  at  present  there  are  none  but  Jews  among 
them,  He  contemplates  the  inclusion  of  Gentiles  as  well 
and  the  exclusion  of  many  Jews.  “  Many  shall  arise  from 
the  east  and  from  the  west  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  the 
sons  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  cast  out  into  outer  darkness.”7 
“  The  kingdom  of  God  shall  be  taken  from  you  and  given 
to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof.”8  “  The 
Gospel  of  the  kingdom  has  to  be  preached  to  the  whole 
world.”9  In  fact  our  Lord  is  represented  as  attaching  to 
Himself  followers  whom  He  expects  to  continue  together  and 
to  add  to  their  number  after  He  is  taken  away  from  them. 

But,  besides  the  general  body  of  disciples,  and  selected 
from  among  them,  He  appointed  twelve  chosen  followers. 
The  name  by  which  they  were  generally  known  was  “  the 
Twelve  ” ;  they  appear  to  have  been  called  Apostles  in 
connection  with  the  special  mission  on  which  they  were  sent 
out  during  our  Lord’s  life  on  earth.  If  they  were  originally 
chosen  for  this  special  work,  St.  Mark  also  tells  us  that  they 
were  designed  to  be  in  a  special  sense  the  companions  of 
their  Master,10  and  the  narrative  makes  it  clear  that  this 
was  the  primary  purpose  of  their  selection.  After  the  Ascen- 

1  St.  Mark  x.  21. 

2  St.  Mark  viii.  34;  St.  Matt.  xvi.  24;  St.  Luke  ix.  23. 

3  St.  Matt.  viii.  22,  ix.  g,  x.  38,  xvi.  24,  xix.  21,  etc. 

4  St.  Matt.  x.  32.  6  St.  Matt.  xi.  6.  6  St.  Luke  xii.  32. 

7  St.  Matt.  viii.  11,  12;  St.  Luke  xiii.  28,  29. 

8  St.  Matt.  xxi.  43.  9  St.  Matt.  xxiv.  14.  10  St.  Mark  iii.  14. 


30 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


sion  of  our  Lord,  when,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit, 
they  undertook  the  further  missionary  labours  which  they 
gradually  realized,  in  accordance  with  their  commission, 
to  be  their  duty,  the  name  Apostles  became  more  common; 
but  the  only  distinctive  name  was  “  the  Twelve.”  During 
our  Lord’s  earthly  life  they  were  not  in  any  real  sense 
Apostles,  and  after  His  Ascension  they  shared  the  name 
with  others.  Most  commonly  they  were  called  simply 
disciples,  and  it  is  often  difficult  to  say  whether  by  this 
word  is  intended  the  Twelve  or  the  whole  body  of  our 
Lord’s  followers.1 

To  estimate  the  meaning  and  importance  of  this  act,  let 
us  look  at  the  result.  Jesus  chose  a  small  number  of 
followers  to  be  attached  to  His  person.  They  were  His 
constant  companions,  and  were  with  Him  when  no  one  else 
was  present.  They,  or  some  of  them,  were  thus  the  wit¬ 
nesses,  and  therefore  able  to  be  the  narrators,  of  His  life. 
They  had  listened  to  His  discourses  and  had  been  the 
recipients  of  special  instructions  and  explanations.  In  this 
way  they  were  as  a  matter  of  fact  trained  by  Him  to  carry 
on  the  message  which  He  had  come  to  deliver,  and  it  is 
somewhat  difficult  to  believe  that  this  was  the  accidental 
result  of  action  undertaken  without  any  such  purpose. 
After  His  Ascension  they  take  their  natural  place  at  the 
head  of  the  young  community;  they  become  the  first 
preachers  of  the  Gospel,  and  in  a  sense  the  rulers  of  the 
early  Church.  This  naturally  arises  from  the  position  they 
occupied  with  our  Lord.2 

1  On  the  significance  of  the  names  used  see  Hort,  The  Christian 
Ecclesia,  pp.  22-29.  °l  cltt6<tto\oi  occurs  as  follows:  in  St.  Matthew 
once  only  (x.  2),  in  St.  Mark  once,  or  perhaps  twice  (vi.  30,  iii. 
14,  W.  H.) — these  in  relation  to  the  special  mission;  in  St.  Luke 
six  times  (vi.  13,  ix.  10,  xi.  49,  xvii.  5,  xxii.  14,  xxiv.  10);  01  SioSeica 
(oi  SojSeiox  airooToXoi,  /xaOrjTai)  in  St.  Matthew  eight  times,  in  St.  Mark 
ten  times,  in  St.  Luke  eleven  times,  in  St.  John  four  times; 
ol  evdeica  occurs  four  times,  01  naOrjrai  is  of  constant  occurrence, 
but  very  often  there  is  no  criterion  as  to  whether  it  refers  to  the 
Twelve,  or  to  a  larger  body  of  the  disciples.  We  know  only  that 
in  certain  cases  where  in  one  Gospel  we  have  the  **  disciples,"  it  is 
limited  in  a  parallel  passage  to  the  Twelve.  Cf.  St.  Matt.  xiv.  1 5 
with  St.  Luke  ix.  12. 

2  See  on  this  Pastor  Pastorum,  by  the  Rev.  Henry  Latham,  who 
brings  out  with  great  force  the  significance  of  the  training  of  the 
Apostles. 


THE  ECCLESIA 


3i 


Let  us  sum  up  our  position  so  far.  Our  Lord  came  to 
found  the  kingdom  of  God  which  was  expected  by  the 
Jews.  While  their  expectations  were  mainly  of  temporal 
rule  and  material  abundance,  He  continually  impresses  on 
them  that  the  duties  and  privileges  of  the  kingdom  are 
purely  spiritual,  and  that  the  theocracy  which  He  founds 
is  one  independent  of  earthly  sovereignty.  Yet  He  uses 
language  which  describes  it  as  a  society,  lays  down  for  it 
a  new  law,  and  speaks  of  its  future  extension  in  the  world. 
The  preparations  for  such  a  society  He  Himself  made  by 
collecting  around  Him  a  body  of  disciples  bound  to  Him 
by  direct  ties  of  personal  adherence,  out  of  whom  He  selected 
twelve  as  His  special  companions,  who  became  afterwards 
preachers,  teachers,  and  rulers.  In  other  words,  He  looked 
forward  to  and  prepared  for  the  founding  of  the  Church. 


V 

We  now  pass  to  the  study  of  certain  special  passages, 
which,  if  they  are  genuine  utterances  of  our  Lord,  clinch 
our  argument.  There  are  two  passages  in  St.  Matthew’s 
Gospel  in  which  the  word  ecclesia 1  occurs.  Let  us  take 
first  that  of  less  importance. 

“  And  if  thy  brother  sin  against  thee,  go,  shew  him  his 
fault  between  thee  and  him  alone:  if  he  hear  thee,  thou 
hast  gained  thy  brother.  But  if  he  hear  thee  not,  take 
with  thee  one  or  two  more,  that  at  the  mouth  of  two  wit¬ 
nesses  or  three  every  word  may  be  established.  And  if  he 
refuse  to  hear  them,  tell  it  unto  the  ecclesia  :  and  if  he 
refuse  to  hear  the  ecclesia  also,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  the 
Gentile  and  the  publican.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  What 
things  soever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in 
heaven:  and  what  things  ye  shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be 
loosed  in  heaven.  Again  I  say  unto  you,  that  if  two 
of  you  shall  agree  on  earth  as  touching  anything,  that 
they  shall  ask,  it  shall  be  done  for  them  of  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven.  For  where  two  or  three  are  gathered 

1  On  the  ecclesia  see  Dissertation  A,  “  The  History  of  the  Word 


\ 


32  THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of 
them.”1 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  word  ecclesia  is  used  in 
this  passage  in  reference  to  the  Jewish  assembly;  it  has 
also  been  supposed  that  it  represents  later  ecclesiastical 
conditions  and  is  not  part  of  our  Lord’s  words.  Neither 
hypothesis  is  needful.  Our  Lord  is  describing  the  duties  of 
an  individual  disciple,  and  as  a  consequence  the  rights  of 
an  assembly  of  the  brethren.  A  disciple  of  His  must  make 
up  his  differences  with  an  erring  brother.  He  is  to  use  the 
influence  of  friends;  if  that  fail  he  is  to  bring  the  matter 
before  the  assembly  or  meeting  of  the  brethren,  even  if  it 
be  a  small  one.  The  decision  of  that  meeting  must  be 
accepted,  for  it  has  the  power  of  judgement,  of  legislation, 
and  of  excommunication.  More  than  that,  it  is  a  spiritual 
and  divine  reality.  If  even  two  or  three  brethren  meet 
together  in  Christ’s  name,  He  is  with  them.  The  word 
representing  ecclesia  used  by  our  Lord  would  have  been 
employed  in  a  general  and  not  a  technical  sense.  He 
simply  meant  an  assembly  or  meeting  of  the  brethren.  It 

1  St.  Matt,  xviii.  15-20.  The  tendency  of  modern  commentators 
is  to  consider  that  this  passage  cannot  be  genuine.  For  instance, 
McNeile  ad  loc. :  “  It  is  probable  that  behind  this  section  lie  some 
genuine  sayings:  but  in  its  present  form  it  belongs  to  a  date  when 
the  Church  was  already  an  organized  body.  It  is  the  most  dis¬ 
tinctly  ecclesiastical  passage  in  Matthew’s  Gospel.”  The  reasons 
given  for  this  (so  far  as  it  is  thought  necessary  to  give  reasons  at 
all)  are: 

(i.)  That  it  implies  a  doctrine  of  the  Church  inconsistent  with 
our  Lord’s  teaching.  This  contention  is  only  true  if  all  the  passages 
which  imply  the  conception  of  a  society  are  ruled  out  in  the  same 
way,  and  if  a  rigid  ecclesiastical  interpretation  is  given  to  the  words. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  they  just  give  that  principle  of  authority  which 
was  necessary  to  the  Church  without  any  law. 

(ii.)  Special  exception  is  taken  to  the  reference  to  the  heathen 
man  and  the  publican.  But  the  criticism  is  beside  the  point;  our 
Lord  does  not  mean  that  the  publican  or  Gentile  should  be  treated 
harshly,  but  that  in  the  new  Israel  it  is  the  man  who  will  not  forgive 
his  brother  and  confess  his  sin  who  is  to  be  in  the  position  that  the 
Gentile  occupied  in  the  Jewish  community.  The  passage  would 
have  been  meaningless  if  due  to  the  compiler  of  the  Gospel,  for  at 
that  time  there  were  no  “  publicans,”  and  the  “  Gentile  ”  was 
admitted  to  the  Church.  The  words  come  most  naturally  from 
our  Lord. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  phraseology  is  early,  simple,  unecclesi- 
astical.  The  word  ecclesia  had  already  been  used  by  Jesus,  and  the 
authority  of  the  Church  lies  in  the  spiritual  principle  of  brotherhood 
and  discipleship* 


THE  PROMISE  TO  PETER 


33 

was  naturally  translated  ecclesia,  the  term  which  was  used 
early  with  special  reference  to  the  Christian  assembly. 

The  second  passage  is  more  important  :  "  And  I  also  say 
unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will 
build  my  ecclesia ;  and  the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not  prevail 
against  it.  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven:  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  shall 
be  bound  in  heaven:  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven.”1 

The  meaning  of  this  passage  seems  clear.  The  Jewish 
people  had  been  often  spoken  of  as  the  “  Israel  of  God,” 
"  the  congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel.”  Our  Lord 
is  clearly  announcing  His  intention  of  building  in  its  place, 
or  as  a  continuation  of  it,  “  the  congregation  of  the  Messiah.” 
He  might  have  spoken  of  it  as  “  His  Israel,”  "  His  people,” 
but  neither  term  was  quite  suitable,  and  so  He  uses  another 
expression,  which  had  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  and 
of  devout  phraseology,  and  might  adequately  describe  the 
ideal  assembly  of  Israel.  This  expression  was  translated 

1  St.  Matt.  xvi.  1 8,  19.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  our 
readers  that  this  passage  is  very  commonly  rejected  as  unauthentic. 
Schmiedel  finds,  amongst  other  reasons,  one  argument  against  it 
in  the  use  of  the  word  ecclesia.  Loisy  says,  however,  that  it  is  not 
the  employment  of  a  word  unused  elsewhere  which  constitutes  the 
strongest  objection  to  this  passage,  “  mais  l’idee  meme  d’une  societe 
terrestre  qui  n’est  ni  la  communaute  israelite  ni  le  royaume  des 
cieux,  et  qui  se  substitue  pour  ainsi  dire  k  Tune  et  a  l’autre.  Jesus 
n’a  jamais  preche  que  le  royaume  et  l’avenement  prochain  du 
royaume.”  But  this  statement  can  only  be  justified  by  omitting 
all  the  passages  in  which  our  Lord’s  teaching  implies  a  Church. 

The  following  reasons  may  be  given  for  thinking  the  passage  as 
a  whole  genuine: 

(i.)  The  phraseology  is  not  Greek  but  Aramaic  in  origin;  it 
must,  therefore,  go  back  to  the  early  period  of  the  Gospel  writing. 
Proofs  of  this  may  be  seen  at  length  in  Dalman’s  discussion  of  the 
meaning  of  the  various  expressions  (Dalman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  121,  213). 

(ii.)  It  could  not  have  been  interpolated  at  any  late  date  (say  in 
the  second  century,  as  has  been  suggested),  for  “  the  manner  in 
which  St.  Peter’s  name  enters  into  the  language  about  the  building 
of  Messiah’s  ecclesia  could  not  be  produced  by  any  view  respecting 
his  office  which  was  current  in  the  second  century  ”  (Hort,  p.  9). 

(iii.)  If  it  is  conceivable  that  it  was  written  to  justify  the  authority 
of  St.  Peter  in  the  first  days  of  the  Church,  it  is  much  more  con¬ 
ceivable  that  words  such  as  these  spoken  to  him  by  our  Lord  led 
to  his  occupying  that  position  (see  below,  p.  36,  n.  1). 

(iv.)  The  application  of  the  term  sKicXrjma  by  the  Apostles  is 
much  easier  to  understand  if  it  was  founded  on  an  impressive  saying 
Of  Our  Lord. 


3 


34  THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

by  a  Greek  word  which  had  come  more  and  more  to  be 
used  in  this  ideal  sense,  and  was  rapidly  appropriated  to 
itself  by  the  Christian  Church,  more  particularly  because 
it  represented  a  striking  saying  of  our  Lord.1 

If  our  interpretation  of  these  two  passages  is  correct,  our 
Lord  had  spoken  of  an  assembly  of  His  disciples  as  a  spiritual 
body,  with  authority  of  legislation  and  discipline,  and  had 
referred  to  the  whole  body  of  those  who  hereafter  were  to 
be  called  in  His  name  in  language  which  had  been  used  to 
describe  the  ideal  assembly  of  Israel,  the  people  of  God. 
Lie  had  thus  suggested  the  employment  of  a  word  which 
many  tendencies  of  the  time  made  peculiarly  appropriate 
for  Christian  purposes. 

But  we  have  not  exhausted  the  importance  of  these  two 
passages.  In  both  alike  we  have  the  authority  of  binding 
and  loosing  given,  in  one  case  to  Peter,  in  the  second  case 
to  others  besides.  What  did  this  signify  ?  It  meant,  it 
seems  clear,  the  authority  of  legislation  such  as  was  claimed 
by  the  Rabbis,  the  power  of  saying  what  was  right  and 
what  was  wrong.  This  would  necessarily  imply  both  the 
power  of  exercising  discipline  in  the  community,  and  also 
the  power  dependent  upon  this,  of  regulating  admission 
into  the  community  and  rejection  from  it.2  The  passage 

1  Hort,  op.  cit.,  pp.  io,  ii :  “  The  congregation  of  God,  which  held 
so  conspicuous  a  place  in  the  ancient  Scriptures,  is  assuredly  what  the 
disciples  could  not  fail  to  understand  a  s  the  foundation  of  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  a  sentence  which  was  indeed  for  the  present  mysterious. 
If  we  may  venture  for  a  moment  to  substitute  the  name  Israel, 
and  read  the  words  as  '  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Israel,’  we  gain 
an  impression  which  supplies  at  least  an  approximation  to  the 
probable  sense.  The  Ecclesia  of  the  ancient  Israel  was  the  Ecclesia 
of  God;  and  now,  having  been  confessed  to  be  God’s  Messiah,  nay. 
His  Son,  He  could  to  such  hearers  without  risk  of  grave  misunder¬ 
standing  claim  that  Ecclesia  as  His  own." 

2  St.  Matt.  xvi.  19,  xviii.  18;  St.  John  xx.  23.  The  best  discussion 
of  these  words  is  that  in  Dalman,  pp.  214,  216:  "  The  terms  dkiv 

and  \veiv  used  in  Matthew  can  be  referred  only  to  an(I 

-  t  : 

in  Aramaic.  .  .  .  These  are  the  technical  forms  for  the  verdict  of 
a  doctor  of  the  law  who  pronounces  something  as  *  bound  ’  (i.e.t 
‘  forbidden  ’)  or  else  as  ‘  loosed  ’  [i.e.,  ‘  permitted  ’),  not,  of  course, 
in  virtue  of  his  own  absolute  authority,  but  in  conformity  with  his 
knowledge  of  the  oral  law.  Consequently  the  statement  of  Jesus 
would  mean  that  His  disciples — in  virtue  of  their  knowledge  of  His 
oral  teaching — will  be  able  to  give  an  authoritative  decision  in 
regard  to  what  the  adherents  of  the  theocracy  may  do  and  may  not 


THE  POSITION  OF  PETER 


35 

is  therefore  interpreted  correctly  by  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  who,  as  so  often  in  other  cases,  translates 
the  evangelical  tradition  into  more  modern  language. 
“  Whose  soever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  to 
them;  and  whose  soever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are 
retained.”* 1 

This  commission  is  in  the  first  place  given  to  St.  Peter. 
What  position  did  it  imply  for  him  ?  Great  difficulties 
have  surrounded  this  passage,  but  the  simplest  interpreta¬ 
tion  is  to  suppose  that  the  words  mean  exactly  what  they 
say,  nor  is  it  legitimate  to  evade  difficulties  by  a  theory 
of  interpolation.  It  means  that  Peter,  who  best  under¬ 
stood  his  Master,  who  had  realized  most  fully  the  meaning 
of  discipleship,  was  to  be  the  one  through  whom  in  a 
particular  way  the  new  community  was  to  be  built  upl¬ 
and  also  that  he,  in  the  first  place,  as  others  with  him,  was 
to  possess  authority,  discipline,  and  the  right  of  teaching. 
It  means,  in  fact,  that  he  was  to  fill  exactly  the  position 
which,  according  to  the  history  of  the  Acts,  he  did  fill.  It 
was  not  a  position  different  in  character  from  that  of  the 
other  Apostles,  but  he  was  first  among  them,  and  at  any 
rate  for  a  time  their  leader  and  the  chief  of  the  new  com¬ 
munity.  It  seems  doubtful  whether  the  position  continued 
throughout  his  life;  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  implied,  and  there¬ 
fore  it  was  not  intended  that  he  should  have  any  successor 
to  his  personal  position.  The  words  mean  exactly  what 

do.  .  .  .  The  application  which  is  given  in  John  xx.  23  to  this 
saying  is  not  unwarranted.  For  exclusion  from  the  community  on 
account  of  some  offence  includes  the  ‘  retaining  *  of  the  sins;  the 
readmission  of  the  sinner  includes  the  ‘  remission  *  of  his  sins.” 

1  Dalman,  op.  cit.,  p.  216:  “  In  the  same  sense,  Peter  (St.  Matt, 
xvi.  19)  has  the  keys  of  the  theocracy,  and  as  keeper  of  the  keys  is  the 
fully  authorized  steward  of  the  house  of  God  upon  earth.  Since, 
moreover,  it  is  the  community  of  Jesus  that  is  here  concerned,  in 
which  Peter  is  to  exercise  this  office,  and  as  no  sort  of  limitation  to 
a  defined  sphere  is  indicated,  it  follows  necessarily  that  the  control 
of  teaching  and  of  discipline  are  regarded  as  entrusted  to  him. 
Peter  had  just  shown  that  he  understood  his  Master  better  than  the 
others.  He  therefore  shall  it  be  who  will  one  day  assume  in  the 
fellowship  that  position  which  Jesus  then  occupied  in  relation  to 
His  disciples.”  Hort,  pp.  20,  21 :  ”  It  was  the  strength,  so  to  speak,  of 
St.  Peter’s  discipleship  which  enabled  him,  leading  the  other  eleven 
disciples  and  in  conjunction  with  them,  to  be  a  foundation  on  which 
fresh  growths  of  the  Ecclesia  could  be  built.” 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


36 

they  say.  It  is  as  illegitimate  to  deny  or  evade  that  meaning 
as  to  read  into  them  what  they  do  not  contain.1 

On  the  second  occasion  on  which  the  words  occur  they 
are  addressed  to  the  disciples.  The  question  has  been 
raised  (and  it  is  one  which  may  be  of  great  importance) 
whether  that  means  the  Twelve  or  the  disciples  generally, 
and  the  significance  that  lies  in  that  question  is  whether 
the  authority  of  binding  and  loosing  is  on  this  occasion 
given  to  the  Church  or  to  an  order  within  the  Church.  An 
examination  of  the  passage  shows  clearly  that  the  words 
are  to  be  taken  as  addressed  to  the  disciples  as  such.  They 
are  introduced  to  explain  why  it  is  that  an  appeal  should 
be  made  to  the  ecclesia  ;  in  fact  they  explain  the  authority 
that  that  body  has,  and  they  are  followed  by  words  em¬ 
phasizing  the  spiritual  authority  of  even  two  or  three  when 
gathered  together  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  There  can,  I 
think,  be  no  doubt  that  the  reference  is  here  to  the  disciples 
as  a  body,  representative  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  that 
it  is  to  the  Christian  Church  that  is  given  the  authority  of 
binding  and  loosing.2 

1  There  are  two  different  methods  of  interpretation  of  the  promise 
to  St.  Peter:  there  are  those,  on  the  one  hand,  who  refuse  to  recog¬ 
nize  it  as  genuine ;  there  are  those,  on  the  other,  who  think  that  it 
implies  the  whole  Roman  position.  Then  there  are  also  those,  like 
Loisy,  who  combine  the  two.  As  regards  the  first,  it  may  be  noted : 
(1)  That  this  promise  is  not  isolated.  The  lists  of  the  Apostles 
clearly  represent  Peter  as  “  first  he  is  given  the  most  prominent 
position  of  all  the  Apostles  in  the  Gospel  narrative,  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel  preserves  another  tradition  of  authority  given  to  him. 
All  this  helps  to  shew  that  it  was  the  tradition  of  the  Christian 
Church  that  whatever  authority  St.  Peter  had  came  from  the  direct 
appointment  of  our  Lord.  (2)  It  is  much  more  natural  to  suppose 
that  St.  Peter  owes  the  position  which  he  takes  at  the  beginning 
without  opposition  to  the  direct  appointment  by  his  Master  than 
that  the  appointment  was  invented  to  justify  his  position. 

As  regards  the  second  point  we  have  to  realize  (1)  that  whatever 
is  given  to  Peter  is  given  also  to  the  Church  as  a  whole;  (2)  that  the 
position  of  St.  Peter  is  that  of  a  le  :der  among  those  who  are  equal 
with  him;  (3)  that  the  promise  to  St.  Peter  was  to  be  the  foundation, 
not  the  ruler,  of  the  Church;  (4)  that  after  the  earliest  days  he 
ceases  to  occupy  any  position  of  authority  in  the  Church.  “  Et 
n’est-il  pas  vrai  que  celui  qui  a  cru  le  premier  a  la  resurrection  du 
Christ  a  pose  la  pierre  fondamentale  du  Christianisme  ?”  These 
words  of  Loisy  ( Les  kvangiles  Synoptiques  ii.  14)  exactly  express 
both  the  position  of  St.  Peter  and  its  limitations. 

2  On  the  other  hand,  Loisy,  for  example,  writes:  “  Protestant 
exegesis  makes  great  efforts  to  attribute  this  power  to  the  com¬ 
munity,  and  not  to  the  Apostles  as  such.  But,  apart  from  the 


AUTHORITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  37 

And  this  conclusion  seems  to  be  corroborated  by  a  point 
which  Dr.  Hort  has  emphasized.  There  are  other  passages 
where  our  Lord  is  represented  as  giving  directions  or  autho¬ 
rity  to  His  disciples,  and  there  has  been  discussion  whether 
on  these  occasions  there  were  others  present  with  the 
Twelve,  whether  the  commission  was  given  in  virtue  of  their 
Apostolic  office  or  in  virtue  of  their  membership  of  the 
ecclesia.  In  relation  to  these  passages  Dr.  Hort  points  out 
that  the  significant  fact  is  the  language  employed.  During 
the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord  the  Twelve  were  disciples,  not 
Apostles,  and  that  was  why  this  name  is  used  of  them. 
They,  sometimes  with  others,  sometimes  without,  are  the 
Church  in  embryo,  the  nucleus  from  which  it  grew,  the 
seed  which  was  to  develop,  and  as  the  Church  they 
receive  directions  which  are  intended  for  the  Church  of  the 
future.  Authority  is  given  to  the  Church.* 1 

fact  that  the  parallelism  of  this  sentence  with  the  words  that  Jesus 
addressed  to  Peter  contradicts  this  hypothesis,  the  nature  of  the 
case  does  not  countenance  it,  as  a  group  of  persons  without  a  head 
cannot  be  supposed  to  be  invested  with  judicial  power;  and  the 
evangelist,  who  had  no  thought  of  formulating  a  theory  on  the 
seat  of  authority  in  the  Church,  had  in  view  the  organization  of 
communities  as  it  existed  in  his  time,  in  which  the  paternal  autho¬ 
rity  of  bishops  and  presbyters  had  been  substituted  for  that  of  the 
Apostles  ”  ( Les  kvangiles  Synoptiques  ii.  91,  quoted  in  Montefiore, 
Synoptic  Gospels,  ii.  681). 

"The  arguments  given  above  seem  to  me  sufficient  to  show  that 
this  is  not  correct,  but  the  comment  is  an  admirable  example  of 
the  modern  critical  method.  First,  the  passage  is,  without  any 
argument,  ascribed  to  the  Evangelist  and  not  to  his  sources ;  secondly, 
there  are  read  into  it  later  ecclesiastical  conditions  of  which  there 
is  no  hint,  and  then  a  forced  meaning  is  given  to  it  to  apply  to 
those  conditions.  If  the  Evangelist  had  meant  the  authority  to 
apply  to  bishops  and  presbyters  he  would  not  have  introduced  the 
remarks  about  our  Lord’s  presence  where  two  or  three  disciples 
meet  together,  which  represent  the  absolute  contradiction  of  any 
such  interpretation. 

1  Hort,  op.  cit.,  p.  29:  "  And  this  use  of  names  points  to  cor¬ 
responding  facts.  Discipleship,  not  apostleship,  was  the  primary 
active  function,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Twelve  till  the  Ascension,  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  it  remained  always  their  fundamental  function. 
The  purpose  of  their  being  with  Him  (with  the  Lord)  stands  first 
in  that  memorable  section  of  St.  Mark,  and  is  sharply  distinguished 
from  the  Lord’s  second  purpose  in  forming  them  into  a  body — viz., 
the  sending  them  forth  to  preach  and  to  work  acts  of  deliverance. 
But  the  distinction  does  not  rest  on  these  words  alone.  A  far 
larger  proportion  of  the  Gospel  is  taken  up  with  records  of  facts 
belonging  to  the  discipleship  than  with  records  of  facts  belonging 
to  the  apostleship,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  them.”  See 
also  p.  39. 


38 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


This  is  made  all  the  more  striking  by  the  contrast  with 
certain  passages  which  are  definitely  and  explicitly  addressed 
to  the  Twelve.  The  first  is  the  Apostolic  commission.  It 
is  significant  that  here,  while  much  is  said  of  the  duties  and 
dangers  of  their  life,  there  is  nothing  of  their  privileges. 
It  is  a  commission  to  work  not  confined  to  our  Lord’s  life¬ 
time.  They  are  sent  forth  as  lambs  in  the  midst  of  wolves. 
A  time  will  come  when  they  will  be  hated  by  all  men  for 
His  name’s  sake,  when  they  shall  be  brought  before  syna¬ 
gogues  and  sanhedrins  and  rulers  and  kings  for  a  testimony 
to  them  and  to  the  Gentiles,  but  the  Spirit  of  the  Father 
shall  speak  in  them.  They  have  learnt  the  mysteries  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  what  they  have  learnt  in  secret 
they  shall  proclaim  upon  the  housetops.  They  will  be 
called  upon  to  confess  their  Master  before  men,  and  will 
often  be  in  danger  of  their  life.  They  must  love  their 
Master  more  than  father  or  mother  or  son  or  daughter, 
more  than  their  own  life.1 

There  is  another  significant  passage  which,  again,  we  are 
told,  was  addressed  to  the  Twelve.  They  were  disputing 
as  to  who  should  be  greatest.  Our  Lord  says  to  them: 
“  If  any  one  wishes  to  be  first,  he  will  be  last  of  all,  and 
servant  of  all.”2  A  similar  lesson  in  fuller  words  is  given 
on  a  well-known  occasion  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee.  Rule 
and  authority  are  what  the  Gentiles  strive  after.  Their 
aim  is  different.  The  greatest  among  them  will  be  as  their 
minister,  and  the  first  among  them  as  a  servant.  Humility 
and  service  are  to  be  their  lot,  just  as  Jesus  Himself  came 
not  to  be  ministered  to,  but  to  minister.3 

1  St.  Matt.  x.  5 — xi.  i.  No  doubt  St.  Matthew  has  collected  to¬ 
gether  (as  his  manner  is)  sayings  of  our  Lord  from  various  sources 
and  different  occasions,  but  that  is  no  reason  for  ascribing  most  of 
them  to  a  later  date.  There  is  full  evidence  that  our  Lord  not  only 
expected  death  for  Himself  but  sufferings  for  His  followers.  At 
any  rate,  the  argument  of  the  text  is  not  dependent  on  the  authen¬ 
ticity  of  every  verse. 

2  St.  Luke  ix.  46-48;  St.  Mark  ix.  33-41;  St.  Matt,  xviii.  1-5;  St. 
Luke  xxii.  24-27. 

3  St.  Mark  x.  35-45;  St.  Matt.  xx.  20-28.  It  might  be  thought 
that  there  were  few  incidents  which  in  every  characteristic  bore 
more  clearly  the  mark  of  genuineness.  However,  the  critics  find 
all  sorts  of  reasons  for  rejecting  them.  We  cannot  waste  more 
space  on  such  trifling. 


BAPTISM 


39 

Now  there  is  nothing  in  these  rebukes  incompatible  with 
the  office  which  the  Apostles  were  to  hold  in  the  future 
community.  They  are  not  directed  against  office,  but 
against  office  held  in  the  wrong  spirit ;  but  it  is  not,  I  think, 
without  significance  that  just  in  these  passages,  and  in  these 
almost  alone,  we  should  be  specially  told  that  the  words 
are  addressed  to  the  Twelve,  while  in  the  passages  in 
which  He  dwells  on  the  authority  of  the  new  community 
our  record  should  speak  of  the  disciples.  The  inference 
which  we  may  legitimately  deduce  from  this  is  that  while 
to  the  Apostles  our  Lord  gave  a  commission  of  ministry, 
to  the  community  He  gave  authority. 

VI 

There  are  two  great  institutions,  both  claiming  to  have 
arisen  from  the  direct  command  of  our  Lord,  which  have 
an  intimate  bearing  on  our  investigation- — Baptism  and  the 
Lord’s  Supper.  They  are  obviously  social  rites.  They  are 
connected,  the  one  with  the  entrance  into  a  society,  the 
other  with  the  life  of  a  society.  It  is  natural,  therefore, 
that  certain  critics  (consistently  with  their  conception  of 
our  Lord’s  teaching)  should  have  doubted  the  commonly 
received  opinion  concerning  their  origin. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  there  is  little  said  about  baptism 
in  the  Gospel  narrative,  but  what  is  said  is  of  great  signifi¬ 
cance.  Our  Lord  Himself  taught  little,  because  it  was  a 
rite  which  He  adopted  and  did  not  institute.  Baptism  for 
the  remission  of  sins  was  instituted  and  preached  by  the 
Baptist.  By  being  baptized  Himself  Jesus  expressed  His 
adhesion  to  it,  and  it  is  unnatural  to  suppose  that  after 
He  had  accepted  it  in  His  person  He  should  not  have 
considered  it  necessary  for  His  followers.  Many  of  those 
who  came  to  Him  had  already  been  the  disciples  of  the 
Baptist  and  would  have  been  baptized  by  him.  Nor  do 
the  Gospels  as  a  rule  trouble  to  repeat  what  has  already 
been  described.  They  had  given  an  account  of  the  institu¬ 
tion  of  baptism  and  that  was  sufficient.  Their  first  readers, 
looking  on  baptism  as  they  would,  as  one  of  the  normal 
conditions  of  Christian  life,  would  have  assumed  the  con- 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


40 

tinuity  of  the  custom,  and  would  not  have  felt  the  need  of 
any  further  description.  Moreover,  the  fact  that  the 
disciples  at  the  beginning  of  their  preaching  appear  spon¬ 
taneously  and  naturally  to  have  made  it  part  of  the  system 
of  the  new  community  is  hardly  explicable  unless  it  had 
been  adopted  as  an  institution  by  our  Lord.  There  is  no 
Christian  institution  of  which  the  universality  and  accept¬ 
ance  are  clearer ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  this  would 
have  been  at  once  the  case  if  it  had  not  already  been  part 
of  the  usual  practice  of  the  Apostles. 

In  harmony  with  this  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
gives  just  sufficient  evidence  of  the  attitude  of  our  Lord, 
when  he  describes  how  the  disciples  of  Jesus  (although  not 
Jesus  Himself)  had  baptized.1  The  incident  may  possibly 
have  been  recorded  for  reasons  connected  with  later  dis¬ 
putes  concerning  the  relations  of  our  Lord  to  John  the 
Baptist.  The  baptism  of  Jesus  was  not  a  new  institution, 
but  the  old  institution  of  John  the  Baptist  with  a  new  and 
deeper  meaning  given  to  it,  and  as  we  know  from  the  Acts 
the  older  form  of  the  rite  continued.  But  there  are  no 
sufficient  reasons  for  doubting  the  truth  of  the  incident. 
It  proves  that  there  were  the  two  apparently  rival  in¬ 
stitutions,  the  origin  of  which  had  to  be  explained.  More¬ 
over,  the  statement  that  our  Lord  Himself  did  not  baptize 
seems  to  add  probability  to  the  writer’s  testimony. 

We  have  in  the  same  Gospel  another  passage  which  appears 
to  refer  to  baptism : 

“  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born 
anew,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  .  .  .  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water 
and  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.”2 

It  is  significant  that  in  this  passage  the  expression 
“  kingdom  of  God,”  which  would  be  that  which  our  Lord 
must  have  used,  has  been  retained  and  has  not,  as  is  more 
usual  in  this  Gospel,  been  interpreted.  The  words  give  the 
theological  basis  which  is  necessary  to  explain  the  customs 
of  the  primitive  Church.  Our  Lord  had  adopted  baptism 
as  the  rite  of  admission  to  discipleship,  and  as  such  it  was 
practised  by  His  disciples  after  His  Ascension. 

1  St.  John  iii.  22-26,  iv.  1,  2.  2  St.  Johniii.  3,  5. 


THE  EUCHARIST  4i 

Christian  practice  combines  with  historical  tradition  to 
explain  the  position  and  purpose  of  the  Lord’s  Supper,  or, 
as  it  soon  came  to  be  called,  the  Eucharist.  If  our  Lord 
did  not  give  a  command  for  its  repetition,  why  was  it  that 
the  Christian  Church  began  at  once  to  repeat  it  ?  Even 
if  the  words,  “  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me,”  were  an 
interpretative  addition,  it  is  the  ideas  implied  in  our  Lord’s 
action  that  they  interpret.  The  Passover  was  in  a  unique 
sense  the  rite  of  the  Old  Covenant.  It  was  bound  up  with 
the  memories  and  traditions  of  Israel.  It  reminded  those 
who  partook  of  it  of  the  privileges  of  the  elect  people.  To 
share  in  it  was,  with  circumcision,  the  peculiar  sign  of  being 
an  Israelite.  It  was  at  the  time  when  people’s  minds  were 
full  of  the  ideas  of  the  paschal  festival  that  Jesus  celebrated 
the  Last  Supper.  He  described  it  as  a  covenant  rite.  He 
spoke  of  His  blood  which  was  shed  as  in  a  covenant  sacrifice, 
and  His  body  which  was  to  be  eaten  as  the  sacrificial  meal 
was  eaten.  His  hearers  would  draw  no  other  deduction  than 
that  He  was  instituting  the  rite  of  a  new  covenant  which 
they  were  to  repeat  as  the  Passover  was  repeated.  No 
lamb  had  been  eaten,  for  it  was  not  the  Passover;  but  a 
body  given  in  sacrifice,  and  wine  for  the  blood  poured  out 
as  the  symbol  of  a  covenant,  were  appointed  instead  to  be 
the  sacrificial  meal.  The  idea  of  a  new  rite  for  a  new 
society  became  permanent.1 


VII 

We  may  now  sum  up  this  discussion.  The  times  were 
ripe  for  that  form  of  religious  society  which  we  call  a  Church. 
The  Jewish  nation  had  in  it  certain  spiritual  germs  out  of 
which  such  a  conception  might  grow,  but  its  expansion  was 
continuously  checked  by  narrowing  restraints  which  pre¬ 
vented  its  development.  Out  of  this  Jewish  society  there 

1  It  would  be  travelling  too  far  from  our  task  to  examine  and 
criticize  all  that  has  been  written  about  the  origin  of  the  Eucharist. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer 
the  attempt  to  find  a  Hellenic  origin  for  it  is  quite  unsuccessful. 
The  language  and  ideas  contained  in  the  record  of  its  foundation 
are  Jewish,  not  Greek.  It  springs  directly  and  naturally  out  of  the 
circumstances  and  the  environment  of  its  institution. 


42  THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

springs  the  Christian  ecclesia,  with  a  strong  bond  of  spiritual 
union,  with  a  rapidly  developing  organization,  with  a 
complete  indifference  to  the  ideals  or  forms  of  an  ordinary 
political  society.  It  quickly  emancipates  itself  from  all  the 
narrow  ideas  of  Jewish  Nationalism.  It  refuses  to  confine 
itself  to  a  single  nation  or  people.  It  discards  the  restraints 
of  the  old  ordinances,  and  develops  certain  simple  corporate 
bonds  which  are  capable  of  universal  acceptance.  Whence 
did  this  society  arise  ? 

Criticism  such  as  that  to  which  we  have  been  obliged  to 
refer  from  time  to  time  seems  to  cut  away  from  it  every¬ 
thing  out  of  which  it  could  spring.  These  critics  are  so 
anxious  to  prove  that  the  later  Church  created  the  Gospel 
that  they  forget  that  something  must  have  created  the 
Church.  The  Gospel  narratives,  however,  as  we  have  them, 
give  a  clear  and  adequate  cause.  They  represent  our  Lord 
as  having  enunciated  the  great  spiritual  principles  which 
are  implied  in  a  Church.  They  represent  Him  as  teaching 
and  acting  with  the  conception  before  Him  of  a  society,  a 
new  Israel  to  spring  out  of  the  old.  They  represent  His 
methods  in  this  as  similar  to  those  that  always  characterized 
His  ministry.  He  did  not  give  moral  rules,  but  moral 
principles.  He  did  not  give  ecclesiastical  rules,  but  He 
taught  the  principles  which  underlie  Church  life.  He  is 
represented  as  at  least  in  one  striking  utterance  using  the 
name  which  was  afterwards  adopted. 

The  Christian  society  has  grown  from  the  development 
of  certain  great  principles — discipleship,  brotherhood, 
ministry,  sacraments.  If  our  Lord  called  disciples  and 
bade  them  live  in  brotherly  love  one  to  another,  if  He  founded 
the  Apostolate,  if  He  sanctioned  Baptism  and  inaugurated 
the  Eucharist,  the  historical  Church  as  we  know  it  would 
come  into  being  by  a  natural  process  of  development.  If 
He  did  none  of  these  things  the  growth  of  the  Christian 
ecclesia  is  inexplicable.  It  is  always  difficult  to  prove  the 
reality  of  historical  events  against  a  criticism  which  is 
arbitrary  and  negative;  but  if  we  take  the  record  of  our 
Lord’s  teaching  in  the  Gospels  as  authentic,  not  necessarily 
in  minute  detail,  but  in  all  essential  features,  it  becomes 
an  adequate  and  true  cause  of  all  that  follows,  the  natural 


THE  PLAN  OF  OUR  LORD 


43 

and  effective  link  between  the  unrealized  if  spiritual  tradi¬ 
tions  of  Judaism  and  the  incipient  Christian  Church. 

The  new  idea  had  to  be  created;  Christianity  alone 
created  it,  and  Christianity  did  so  because  it  had  learnt  it 
from  its  Founder.1 


VIII 

We  have  finished  our  argument.  A  somewhat  tedious 
one  it  may  seem  to  some.  I  would  ask  you  now  to  con¬ 
sider  what  practical  deductions  we  may  draw  from  it. 

i.  First  of  all,  the  fact  that  our  Lord’s  purpose  and  plan 
was  to  found  a  society,  and  that  this  was  an  integral  portion 
of  His  message  to  the  world.  This  has  never,  I  think,  been 
expressed  more  forcibly  or  more  eloquently  than  by  the 
author  of  Ecce  Homo,  that  fresh  and  stimulating  present¬ 
ment  of  the  life  of  Christ : 

“  It  was  not  from  accident  or  convenience,”  he 
writes,  “  that  Christ  formed  a  Society.  ...  To 
organize  a  Society  and  to  bind  the  members  of  it  together 
by  the  closest  ties  were  the  business  of  His  life.  For 
this  reason  it  was  that  He  called  men  away  from  their 
homes,  imposed  upon  some  a  wandering  life,  upon 
others  the  sacrifice  of  their  property,  and  endeavoured 
by  all  means  to  divorce  them  from  their  former  con¬ 
nections  in  order  that  they  might  find  a  new  home  in 
the  Church.  For  this  reason  He  instituted  a  solemn 
initiation,  and  for  this  reason  refused  absolutely  to 
give  to  anyone  a  dispensation  from  it.  For  this 
reason  too  He  established  a  common  feast,  which  was 
through  all  ages  to  remind  Christians  of  their  indis¬ 
soluble  union.”2 

This  is,  I  think,  a  fact  of  fundamental  importance. 
Humanly  speaking,  if  Christianity  had  not  been  organized 
as  a  Church  it  would  not  have  had  the  power  of  either 
survival  or  expansion.  It  was  because  the  followers  of 
Christ  were  bound  together  as  an  organized  body  with  the 

1  On  the  relation  of  the  teaching  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  the 
foundation  of  the  Church,  see  Dissertation  C. 

2  Ecce  Homo,  p.  92  (second  edition). 


44  THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

strength  and  solidarity  that  the  sense  of  discipleship  and 
brotherhood  gave  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  became  a  power 
in  the  world  and  did  not  remain  an  unregulated  enthusiasm. 
Loyalty  to  their  Master,  enthusiasm  for  the  society,  love 
of  the  brotherhood,  were  all  concentrated  in  the  great  fact 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  it  is  this  fact,  whether  exhibited 
in  the  world-embracing  conception  of  Catholicity  or  Uni¬ 
versality  in  its  various  forms,  or  in  the  less  obtrusive 
but  often  more  intensive  devotion  to  the  local  church  or 
sect  or  cause,  that  has  been  amongst  the  most  powerful 
motive  forces  of  its  advance.  Philosophic  ideas  may  for 
a  time  permeate  society,  but  their  influence  is  dependent 
on  the  intellectual  adhesion  of  the  few.  A  religion,  so  long 
as  it  remains  ethnic  or  national,  can  only  influence  a  limited 
circle.  It  is  when  a  creed  sufficiently  elevated  and  universal 
to  appeal  to  wide  circles  of  humanity  has  the  strength 
behind  it  of  a  Church,  that  it  is  able  to  transcend  the  bounds 
of  nations,  to  travel  to  distant  parts  of  the  world,  and  to 
penetrate  deeply  the  life  of  the  people. 

2.  But,  secondly,  it  is  equally  important  to  emphasize 
what  our  Lord  did  not  do.  He  might  have  acted  like  the 
founder  of  an  Oxford  College,  have  drawn  up  a  body  of 
statutes,  appointed  certain  officials,  and  thus  stereotyped 
the  character  of  the  society.  This  we  recognize  to  be  just 
what  He  did  not  do.  He  laid  down  many  principles  but 
drafted  no  rules.  He  laid  the  basis  of  morality  on  the 
highest  principle,  that  of  love,  but  gave  no  other  new  com¬ 
mandment  ;  the  rule  of  faith  was  devotion  to  His  person,  He 
formulated  no  creed;  He  instituted  rites  of  initiation  and 
communion,  with  no  organized  ceremonial  or  fixed  doctrine ; 
He  established  ministry,  but  gave  no  order  for  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  ministers.  It  is  significant  that  the  one  order  that 
He  might  have  been  held  to  establish — that  of  His  Apostles 
— did  not  survive  its  first  holders.  We  talk  of  an  Apostolic 
ministry,  and  of  successors  to  the  Apostles;  but  we  are  giving 
that  designation  to  officials  for  whose  origin  and  appoint¬ 
ment  no  direct  divine  sanction  can  be  found,  and  whose 
characteristic  features  have  varied  from  time  to  time. 

Now  anyone  who  studies  the  history  of  the  Church  will 
recognize  how  sound  such  a  method  was.  Anything  defi- 


THE  METHODS  OF  OUR  LORD 


45 

nitely  ordered  by  our  Lord  would  have  become  an  integral 
part  of  Christian  teaching.  The  Church  would  have  been 
stereotyped  and,  as  societjf  became  different,  the  world 
would  have  been  under  the  rule  of  a  dead  hand.  But  there 
is  no  dead  hand  in  the  Christian  Church,  there  is  only  a 
living  Christ.  We  cannot  find  any  support  for  any  par¬ 
ticular  theory  of  Church  polity  in  our  Lord’s  teaching, 
and  I  think  that  Bishop  Gore  goes  far  beyond  the  evidence 
when  he  seeks  to  find  a  definite  divine  sanction  for  a 

% 

particular  theory  of  the  ministry. 

"  A  ‘  once  for  all  delivered  ’  faith,”  he  says,  "  and  a 
once  for  all  covenanted  grace  associate  themselves  naturally 
with  a  once  for  all  instituted  society  and  a  once  for  all 
established  ministry.”1  Bishop  Gore  argues,  as  I  believe 
quite  rightly,  that  the  foundation  of  a  Church  was  part  of 
our  Lord’s  plan.  He  deduces  from  that  the  proposition 
that  He  intended  to  found  a  particular  form  of  Church, 
and  thus  claims  the  divine  sanction  for  that  theory  of  the 
Church  which  he  had  deduced  from  his  study  of  Church 
History,  a  theory  which,  as  he  expounds  it,  has  never 
completely  been  realized  in  practice,  but  represents  an 
ideal.  That  ideal  we  shall  have  to  examine — it  is  certainly 
in  many  ways  admirable,  and  I  am  not  in  the  least  concerned 
to  condemn  it.  It  is  sufficient  to  establish  at  present  that 
so  far  as  I  can  see  no  particular  theory  of  the  Church  and 
no  form  of  Church  government  can  find  any  support,  direct 
or  indirect,  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord. 

3.  Then,  thirdly,  I  would  draw  your  attention  to  the 
methods  of  our  Lord,  and  to  the  proportion  observed  in 
His  teaching.  It  is  only  by  comparatively  slight  indica¬ 
tions,  and  to  a  large  extent  indirectly,  that  we  learn  that 
He  intended  to  found  a  Church,  or  that  a  Church  would 
be  the  natural  outcome  of  His  teaching.  He  only  spoke 
of  a  Church  twice.  Clearly,  if  it  is  an  essential  part  of  His 
work  it  is  a  subordinate  one.  He  preaches  the  Kingdom, 
not  the  Church.  I  believe  that  here  also  we  may  find  a 
guide  to  ourselves.  So  far  as  my  observation  goes  Chris¬ 
tianity  has  always  failed  when  it  has  put  teaching  about 


1  Gore,  The  Church  and  the  Ministry,  p.  7. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


46 

the  Church  too  prominently  forward.  We  are  told  by  those 
who  addressed  our  soldiers  in  France,  at  a  time  when  men 
were  faced  by  the  ultimate  realities  of  life  and  death,  that 
if  a  preacher  began  to  talk  about  the  Church,  their  interest 
at  once  flagged.  There  was  no  message  there  for  those 
about  to  die.  I  cannot  but  think  that  this  represents  a 
profound  truth.  When  people’s  thoughts  are  directed  to 
the  Ecclesiastical  rather  than  the  Spiritual — whatever  form 
Ecclesiasticism  may  take,  whether  Romanism,  or  Catholic¬ 
ism,  or  Anglicanism,  or  Protestantism,  devotion  to  Bishops 
or  devotion  to  Presbyters,  the  Free  Church  movement  or 
the  Establishment — it  is  interesting  to  notice  how  little 
success  there  is,  how  little  permanent  result  comes  from 
the  most  unremitting  efforts.  I  cannot  but  think  that  the 
continuous  and  pathetic  failure  of  the  Jesuit,  who  has  for 
three  centuries  given  up  his  life  to  an  ideal  which,  in  spite 
of  his  discipline,  his  sacrifice,  and  his  intellectual  ability, 
he  never  attains,  has  arisen  from  the  fact  that  he  has  always 
put  the  Church  first  and  the  Gospel  second.  Our  Lord 
founded  the  Church  by  preaching  the  Kingdom.  We  can 
only  build  up  the  Church  by  preaching  the  Gospel. 

4.  And  then,  fourthly,  a  Church  will  fail  just  so  far 
as  it  fails  to  realize  the  completeness  of  the  Christian  ideal. 
The  Church,  we  say,  means  ministry.  Yes,  certainly  a 
ministry  is  necessary  for  the  Church.  But  does  not  ex¬ 
perience  tell  us  how  barren,  except  perhaps  to  the  academic 
theologian,  have  been  the  interminable  discussions  about 
ministry.  The  Church  means  sacraments.  Certainly.  But 
how  unwholesome  sacramental  teaching  may  be  if  divorced 
from  the  living  realities  on  which  it  is  dependent !  For 
in  its  essence  the  Church  means  discipleship  and  brother¬ 
hood,  and  unless  these  are  the  most  prominent  elements  in 
its  presentation,  how  futile  it  may  become  !  The  ministry 
is  intended  to  bring  people  together;  it  means  a  failure  if  it 
separates  them.  The  sacraments  are  intended  to  be  sacra¬ 
ments  of  union;  they  fail  if  they  become,  as  they  sometimes 
tend  to  do,  sacraments  of  disunion.  The  Church  should 
bind  all  classes  in  a  country  together  in  the  bonds  of  brotherly 
love.  Its  proud  boast  of  catholicity  means  that  it  should 
bring  together  the  nations  of  the  world  in  the  fold  of  Jesus 


UNITY  IN  CHRIST 


47 

Christ.  If  it  tends  to  divide  nation  from  nation,  people 
from  people,  class  from  class,  so  far  it  has  failed,  for  its 
high  purpose  is  to  unite  all  mankind  in  Christ.  “  There 
is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free, 
there  is  neither  male  nor  female,  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ 
Jesus.”1 


1  Gal.  iii.  28. 


LECTURE  II 

THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

“  The  Church,  which  is  his  body,  the  fulness  of  him  that  filleth  all 
in  all.” — Eph.  i.  22,  23. 

The  Apostolic  Church.  Authorities.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
The  Pastoral  Epistles. 

The  earliest  Christian  community.  Baptism.  The  teaching  of 
the  Apostles.  The  position  of  St.  Peter.  The  Communion.  The 
Breaking  of  Bread.  The  prayers.  Authenticity  and  importance  of 
the  description. 

The  appointment  of  the  Seven.  The  nature  of  the  office.  The 
method  of  appointment.  The  importance  of  the  crisis  and  its 
influence  on  the  Church. 

The  missionary  ministers.  The  Apostles,  prophets,  evangelists, 
and  teachers.  Their  importance  for  the  life  of  the  Church. 

The  growth  and  organization  of  the  local  communities.  The 
presbyters  in  Judaea  and  Jerusalem.  Appointed  by  St.  Paul.  In 
the  Pastoral  Epistles.  Called  also  Episcopi  and  Pastors.  The 
origin  of  the  office.  Their  duties. 

The  authority  of  the  Twelve.  The  Church  at  Jerusalem.  The 
position  of  James.  A  Christian  Sanhedrin. 

The  conception  of  the  Church  in  Apostolic  times.  The  new  Israel. 
The  one  Church.  The  unity  of  the  Church.  The  body  of  Christ. 
The  Church  and  the  churches. 

The  institutions  of  the  Church.  Baptism.  The  Breaking  of 
Bread.  Laying  on  of  hands.  Confirmation.  Reconciliation  of 
penitents.  Ordination. 

The  Church  and  the  Ministry  contrasted.  The  two  theories  of 
authority.  Both  one-sided. 

Conclusions.  The  temporary  nature  of  Apostolic  conditions. 
The  absence  of  Apostolic  injunctions.  The  permanent  principles 
of  Apostolic  times.  The  living  power  of  the  Church. 

Our  task  to-day  is  the  study  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  It 
is  a  wide,  a  complicated,  and  a  difficult  subject,  and  we 
had  better  begin  our  work  without  further  preface. 

One  word  I  must  say  about  our  authorities.  They  are 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Apostolic  Epistles.  On 
the  Acts,  as  you  are  aware,  much  has  been  written  during 

48 


THE  ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES 


49 

the  last  twenty  years,  and  the  trend  of  criticism  has  been 
to  corroborate  the  favourable  opinion  many  of  us  had 
formed  of  its  character.  Few  hesitate  to  ascribe  it  to  St. 
Luke.  None,  I  think,  now  would  put  it  later  than  the  first 
century.  Not  many  would  put  it  much  later  than  the 
year  a.d.  8o.  An  increasing  number  would  think  that  it 
was  written  even  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  It  gives 
us,  in  any  case,  the  history  of  the  Church  as  it  appeared 
to  a  writer  of  the  second  generation  of  Christians  who  had 
good  sources  of  information,  and  exhibits  the  observation 
and  insight  necessary  for  an  historian.1  Moreover,  the 
earlier  chapters,  which  contain  the  account  of  the  primitive 
Christian  community  at  Jerusalem,  are,  I  believe,  based 
upon  a  written  source,  and  the  picture  that  they  present 
is  true.2 

Of  the  other  writings  the  only  ones  that  need  trouble  us 
are  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  The  critical  question  here  is 
more  difficult.  The  majority  of  those  who  call  themselves 
critics  deny  their  genuineness.  Personally,  I  believe  that 
they  are  wrong,  that  these  Epistles  come  from  St.  Paul, 
although,  more  than  his  other  writings,  they  exhibit  the 
work  of  an  amanuensis.  But  the  question  of  authorship 
need  not  trouble  us  much.  They  can  hardly  in  any  case 
have  been  written  after  the  close  of  the  first  century,  and 

1  The  present  writer  has  discuseed  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in 
Hastings  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  “  Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  and  in 
the  Church  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  liii..  No.  105,  October,  1901, 
and  vol.  lv..  No.  no,  January,  1903,  p.  388.  Since  Professor 
Harnack  adopted  and  made  his  own  the  admirable  investigations 
of  Sir  John  Hawkins,  those  Englishmen  who  consider  themselves 
critics  have  begun  to  say  that  Professor  Harnack  has  proved  that 
St.  Luke  wrote  the  Acts.  So  long  as  the  arguments  were  used  by 
Englishmen,  they  remained  blind  and  deaf,  for  they  have  no  eyes 
but  for  German  scholarship. 

2  On  the  historical  character  of  the  early  chapters  of  St.  Luke  see 
my  article  in  Hastings’  Dictionary  mentioned  in  the  previous  note. 
The  undeveloped  phraseology  of  St.  Peter’s  speeches  implies  that  of 
them,  as  of  our  Lord’s  own  words,  some  early  record  had  been 
preserved,  and  there  are  sufficient  stylistic  differences  to  imply  the 
use  of  a  source  in  the  early  chapters,  but  of  its  limits  and  contents 
only  the  most  unsubstantial  conjectures  are  possible.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  consider  how  impossible  it  would  be  to  reconstruct 
St.  Mark’s  Gospel  if  we  only  had  St.  Luke  before  us,  in  order  to 
realize  how  futile  are  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  distinguish 
sources. 


4 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


50 

they  depict  the  organization  of  the  Church  as  it  appeared 
at  the  close  of  the  Apostolic  period.1 

I  propose,  first  of  all,  to  describe  the  earliest  Christian 
community,  and  then  to  narrate  the  manner  in  which  the 
organization  of  the  Church  developed,  and  I  shall  conclude 
with  a  sketch,  so  far  as  that  is  possible,  of  the  life  and 
institutions  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  and  an  analysis  of  the 
ecclesiastical  principles  that  they  seem  to  imply. 

I 

The  earliest  period  in  the  history  oi  the  Christian  Church 
is  described  in  the  first  five  chapters  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.2  It  was  mainly,  although  not  entirely,  confined 
to  Jerusalem.3  It  is  represented  to  us  as  a  period  of 
spiritual  enthusiasm,  of  brotherly  unity,  of  miraculous 
power  and  popular  favour.  The  Church  was  as  yet  con¬ 
fined  entirely  to  Jews.  It  was  a  new  sect.  Its  members 
were  distinguished  from  other  Jews  by  their  greater  earnest¬ 
ness,  their  stricter  life,  their  zeal  and  devotion,  and  by  the 
belief  that  the  Master  who  had  been  crucified  and  had  risen 
again  was  the  Messiah  whom  the  Jews  expected,  and  that 
He  would  shortly  come  again  to  establish  His  kingdom. 
They  had  already  received  that  gift  of  the  Spirit  which 
was  promised  in  the  Messianic  times.  Whether  they  at 
once  began  to  speak  of  themselves  as  the  Church  we  cannot 
say.  They  were  called  "  the  believers,”4  “  those  who  are 

1  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  carefully  the  position  with  which 
Timothy  is  faced  is  distinguished  from  that  before  Titus.  No 
directions  are  given  to  Timothy  to  appoint  presbyters;  it  would 
be  unnecessary,  for  the  Church  at  Ephesus  was  fully  organized. 
On  the  other  hand,  Titus  was  organizing  new  churches  and  there¬ 
fore  the  orders  to  him  are  natural.  Was  this  the  work  of  a  skilful 
forger,  who  realized  for  himself  the  historical  situation,  or  the 
natural  action  of  St.  Paul  ?  I  doubt  the  former. 

2  This  section  is  based  on  an  article  that  I  wrote  in  the  Church 
Quarterly  Review,  July,  1905,  vol.  lx.,  No.  120,  p.  317,  “  The 
Christian  Society.  III.  The  Earliest  Christian  Community.” 

3  Acts  v.  16.  The  presence  of  large  numbers  of  Christians  at 
Damascus,  sufficient  to  make  a  persecution  there  seem  necessary, 
may  very  probably  have  been  mainly  due  to  the  persecution  at 
the  death  of  Stephen. 

4  o\  TnaTai’<javT6£,  Acts  ii.  44  iv.  32;  of.  iv.  4,  v.  14. 


THE  PRIMITIVE  CHURCH  51 

being  saved/'1  “  the  brethren/52  They  were  probably 
known  to  outsiders  as  the  sect  of  the  Nazarenes.3 

We  can  construct  a  fairly  full  picture  of  the  life  of  this 
community.  It  is  summed  up  for  us  as  follows:  “  They 
then  that  received  his  word  were  baptized;  and  there  were 
added  to  them  in  that  day  about  three  thousand  souls. 
And  they  continued  stedfastly  in  the  teaching  of  the  apostles, 
and  in  the  fellowship,  in  the  breaking  of  bread,  and  the 
prayers/’4  They  were  received  into  the  number  of  the 
believers  by  Baptism.  The  Apostles  were  their  teachers 
and  leaders.  They  were  bound  together  in  unity  of  life 
and  fellowship,  in  the  sacramental  rite  of  the  breaking  of 
bread  and  in  common  worship. 

1.  Each  of  these  points  demands  some  notice.  The  con¬ 
dition  of  receiving  the  promise  of  salvation  was  repentance 
and  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Messiah.  The  external 
sign  of  the  reception  of  that  promise  and  of  incorporation 
into  the  community  was  Baptism.  “  Repent,”  says  St. 
Peter,  “  and  be  baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Messiah  unto  the  remission  of  your  sins;  and  ye 
shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.”5  From  the 
beginning  Baptism  is  clearly  a  normal  and  necessary  Chris¬ 
tian  institution,  and  the  author  of  the  Acts  having  once 
clearly  indicated  this  does  not  refer  to  it  again  except  for 
special  reasons. 

2.  The  community  is  represented  as  under  the  rule  and 
guidance  of  the  Apostles.  The  believers  “  continued  in  the 
Apostles’  teaching.”  It  is  the  Apostles  who  take  the  lead 
on  all  occasions.  Those  who  sell  land  lay  the  proceeds  at 
the  feet  of  the  Apostles,  who  distribute  it.  It  is  against 
the  Apostles  that  the  anger  of  the  high  priests  and 
Sadducees  is  directed.  It  is  they  who  take  the  lead  in 
the  first  new  departure  which  indicates  the  progress  of 
the  Christian  Church.6  The  writer  of  the  Acts  had  a 
very  clear  idea  of  the  qualifications  which  fitted  the 
Apostles  for  the  position  which  he  represents  them  as 

1  oi  OM%6jxevoi}  Acts  ii.  47.  2  ot  ade\<poi,  Acts  i.  15. 

3  Acts  xxiv.  5,  y)  tujv  NafrupatW  aipemg. 

4  Acts  ii.  41,  42.  5  Acts  ii.  38. 

6  Acts  ii.  42,  iv.  35,  37,  v.  2,  18,  vi.  2. 


52 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


holding.1  They  had  been  the  companions  of  our  Lord  during 
His  life,  they  had  received  His  last  commands.  They  were 
the  witnesses  of  the  Resurrection.  They  with  the  other 
disciples  had  received  power  by  the  coming  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Hence  they  are  specially  fitted  to  be  the  teachers 
of  the  new  community.  The  standard  of  teaching  was 
the  witness  and  tradition  of  the  Apostles.  In  the  absence 
of  authoritative  records  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles  to 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Jesus  naturally  formed  the  basis 
of  the  common  faith. 

But  although  the  rule  of  the  community  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  Apostles,  a  position  of  special  prominence  is  held  by 
St.  Peter.  He  is  both  spokesman  and  leader.  On  all 
occasions  he  takes  the  initiative.  All  the  addresses  recorded 
were  delivered  by  him.  It  is  he  particularly  who  works 
miracles.  He,  with  St.  John,  is  especially  exposed  to  the 
attention  of  the  authorities.  He  takes  the  lead  in  discipline 
and  apology;  and  the  awe  and  wonder  which  surround  an 
Apostle  are  in  an  especial  way  centred  on  him.  But  although 
he  is  represented  as  always  taking  the  lead,  it  is  not  as 
one  apart  from,  but  as  one  joined  with,  the  Apostolic  body, 
as  chief  among  them,  not  as  a  ruler  over  them.  He  is, 
indeed,  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  whole  body.2 

3.  The  next  characteristic  mentioned  of  the  believers 
is  the  fellowship  or  communion.  This  it  is  stated  was 
in  an  especial  sense  exhibited  by  the  fact  that  they  had 
all  things  in  common.3  We  need  not  now  examine  in 
detail  the  vexed  question  what  exactly  this  primitive  com¬ 
munism  implied  economically.  On  the  religious  side  it 
meant  that  the  unity  and  fellowship  of  the  life  of  the  primi¬ 
tive  community  was  shewn  by  a  singular  generosity  which 

1  See  the  account  of  the  appointment  of  Matthias,  Acts  i.  15-26, 
and  cf.  1  Cor.  ix.  1.  The  office  is  called  a  diakonia  or  ministry, 
and  in  a  quotation  from  the  Psalms  it  is  described  as  an  episcope, 
the  word  afterwards  used  of  the  office  of  bishop,  Acts  i.  20  (Ps.  cviii. 
8,  LXX)  rr)v  tTU(TK07r>iv  avrov  Xafitrco  mpof. 

2  Acts  ii.  1,  44,  iv.  32,  vi.  1-4. 

3  This  is  treated  with  marked  sanity  by  Dr.  Armitage  Robinson 
in  Hastings’  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  i.,  pp.  460,  461,  Art.  “Com¬ 
munion,”  and  with  more  than  usual  want  of  sanity  by  Dr.  Schmiedel 
in  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  vol.  i.,  pp.  877-880,  “  Community  of 
Goods.” 


BREAKING  OF  BREAD 


53 

almost  amounted  to  a  practical  communism.  The  believers 
were  as  one  family.  All  who  were  wealthy  gave  lavishly 
of  their  goods  and  lands  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor.  There 
was  a  daily  distribution  of  goods  for  the  widows  and  those 
who  were  in  need.  The  self-sacrifice,  unity,  and  generosity, 
which  should  be  always  characteristic  of  the  Christian,  were 
realized  for  a  short  time  in  a  manner  that,  as  the  community 
grew,  became  impossible  in  practice,  although  always 
possible  in  spirit.  Fellowship  in  life  to  the  fullest  extent 
must  always  be  a  characteristic  of  true  Christianity. 

4.  Next,  we  are  told,  they  continued  steadfast  in  the 
“  breaking  of  bread.”1  Immediately  afterwards  they  are 
spoken  of  as  “  breaking  bread  from  house  to  house.”2 
Although  the  latter  passage  shews  that  a  meal  was  intended, 
for  it  is  added,  “  they  did  take  their  food  with  gladness 
and  singleness  of  heart,”  yet  the  context  in  each  case  implies 
that  the  meal  was  also  a  religious  act:  in  the  first  passage 
it  is  coupled  with  "  the  prayers”;  in  the  second  with  the 
daily  visit  to  the  Temple.  The  phrase  “  breaking  bread  ” 
is  used  in  all  the  accounts  of  the  Last  Supper.3  St.  Paul 
elsewhere  has  the  very  significant  phrase,  “  the  bread  which 
we  break,”4  where  the  context  clearly  implies  the  Christian 
Sacrament.  Elsewhere  in  the  Acts  the  phrase  is  used  of 
the  meal  at  Troas:  “  On  the  first  day  of  the  week  when 
we  were  gathered  together  to  break  bread.”6  All  these 
instances,  together  with  the  evidence  of  the  context,  are 
sufficient  to  prove  that  here  we  have  a  religious  rite,  identical 
with  what  was  afterwards  called  the  Eucharist.  It  is 
possible  also  that  in  other  places  where  the  phrase  recurs 
some  connection  with  this  institution  is  implied.  The 
solemn  breaking  of  bread  in  the  ship  at  the  moment  of 
extreme  peril  was  obviously  something  more  than  an 
ordinary  meal.6  The  risen  Lord  was  made  known  to  the 
two  disciples  on  the  road  to  Emmaus  by  the  blessing  and 
breaking  of  bread.7  The  early  Church  recognized  a  deep 

1  t\ 1  «Xocrei  rov  aprov ,  Acts  ii.  42. 

2  Acts  ii.  46,  KX&vreg  re  /car’  oIkov  aprov. 

3  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  26,  Mark  xiv.  22,  tvXoypaag  UXa^e.  St.  Luke 
xxii.  19,  evxaPl<yTr,<rag  ticXaos. 

4  I  Cor.  x.  1 6,  rov  aprov  ov  tcXat^ei’. 

6  Acts  xx.  7,  ii.  6  Acts  xxvii.  35, 


7  St.  Luke  xxiv.  30,  35. 


54 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


spiritual  significance  in  the  same  solemn  formula  which  is 
employed  in  all  the  accounts  of  the  miraculous  feeding.1 

The  evidence  clearly  shews  the  religious  character  of 
the  rite.  It  was  celebrated  privately  in  the  home  of 
believers  and  was  thus  distinguished  from  the  assemblies 
in  the  Temple  courts.  There  was  the  ordinary  evening 
meal,  but  there  was  more.  The  special  accompaniment 
was  the  praise  of  God;  it  was  a  glad  and  happy  festival, 
in  fact  a  Eucharist,  a  feast  of  thanksgiving,  and  it  was  one 
of  the  visible  signs  of  the  unity  of  early  Christianity. 

5.  Lastly,  the  early  Christians  were  united  in  “  the 
prayers.”2  The  meetings  for  prayer  seem  to  have  been 
of  two  kinds,  in  the  Temple  and  in  private  houses.3  The 
body  of  believers  were  constant  in  their  attendance  in  the 
Temple,  not  only  as  individual  Israelites,  but  in  a  corporate 
capacity.  “  They  continued  stedfastly  with  one  accord  in 
the  temple.”  To  the  Western,  and  especially  to  an  English, 
reader,  accustomed  to  the  orderliness  and  dignity  of  our 
public  services,  this  would  imply  taking  part  in  an  organized 
system  of  public  worship.  Yet  this  is  probably  the  very 
last  thing  that  is  meant.  The  wide  and  spacious  porticos 
of  the  Temple  would,  as  in  the  case  of  the  modern  mosque, 
form  admirable  places  for  religious  meetings,  for  schools, 
for  sermons,  for  catechetical  instruction,  and  for  united 
prayer.  In  these  porticos,  and  especially  in  that  called 
Solomon’s,  they  met  at  the  stated  hours  of  prayer,  for 
common  worship  and  to  receive  the  instruction  of  the 
Apostles.4 

In  the  narrative  in  the  Acts  the  author  presents  to  us  a 
picture  of  the  Church  in  its  most  primitive  form.  It  is 
characterized  by  unity  in  spirit  and  in  life,  by  miraculous 
powers,  and  a  success  only  broken  by  slight  opposition  on 
the  part  of  the  authorities.  It  is  a  period  of  hopefulness 
for  the  future,  one  to  which  an  after  generation  might 
look  back  with  regret  after  the  fanaticism  of  the  Jews, 
the  persecution  of  the  Gentiles,  and  controversy  among 
Christians  had  broken  out.  We  may  admit  perhaps  a 
touch  of  idealization,  but,  allowing  for  that,  how  far  is  it 

1  St.  Matt.  xiv.  19,  xv.  36;  St.  Mark  vi.  41,  viii.  6,  7;  St.  Luke  ix.  16. 

2  Acts  ii.  42,  teal  rale,  n 3  Cf.  Acts  V.  42. 

4  Acts  ii.  46;  (jToa  2oXo/i<ivroe,  Acts  iii.  11,  v.  12. 


CREDIBILITY  OF  THE  NARRATIVE 


55 


possible  to  maintain  that  it  is  in  its  general  outline  real 
history  ?  A  certain  school  of  critics  look  upon  it  as  pure 
fiction.  To  test  it  we  have  a  few  hints  in  St.  Paul’s  Epistles, 
but  our  chief  method  must  be  to  examine  its  relation  to 
what  comes  after  and  before,  for  our  ultimate  corroboration 
of  any  historical  reconstruction  depends  upon  whether  it 
takes  its  proper  place  in  the  historical  sequence  of  events. 

Now,  as  regards  what  comes  before,  if,  as  all  our  evidence 
implies,  a  definite  commission  and  ministry  were  given  to 
the  Apostles,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  take  the 
place  they  are  here  represented  as  occupying;  if  our  Lord 
had  given  His  sanction  to  Baptism,  both  by  being  baptized 
Himself  and  by  express  command,  if  He  had  celebrated  the 
Last  Supper  and  given  command  for  its  repetition,  it  was 
natural  that  Baptism  and  the  Breaking  of  Bread  should 
become  at  once  institutions  of  the  early  Church.  The 
office  of  Messiah  which  He  had  claimed  and  the  fact  of  the 
Resurrection  are  implied  in  all  early  Christian  teaching. 
The  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  shewn  by  the  Pauline 
Epistles  to  have  been  part  of  the  life  of  the  early  Church. 

With  regard  to  what  comes  after,  the  evidence  is  both 
negative  and  positive.  Negative  because  there  is  a  com¬ 
plete  absence  of  any  attempt  to  find  in  the  early  period 
any  of  the  ideas  or  institutions  of  a  later  period.  This  is 
the  more  remarkable  if  we  remember  the  absence  of  his¬ 
torical  sense  in  most  ecclesiastical  writers.  The  author  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  lived  at  a  time  when  there  were 
certainly  presbyters  and  perhaps  bishops,  and  when  the 
diaconate  was  a  regular  institution.  He  was  strongly 
influenced  by  the  thought  and  ideas  of  St.  Paul.  But  he 
does  not  read  any  of  these  things  back  into  the  account  of 
this  oldest  Christian  community.  The  life  is  early  and 
unformed.  The  doctrine  is  simple  and  undeveloped.  The 
organization  is  embryonic. 

But,  although  this  is  true,  it  is  also  true  that  the  principles 
that  are  required  to  account  for  the  later  ecclesiastical 
development  are  already  present.  There  is  unity  in  life 
and  organization,  unity  in  teaching,  unity  in  Baptism  and 
the  Breaking  of  Bread,  unity  in  worship.  All  that  was 
required  for  the  growth  of  the  Church  was  there. 


56 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


Our  argument,  then,  is  this.  If  the  authenticity  of  the 
Gospel  narrative  and  of  these  early  chapters  of  the  Acts 
be  assumed,  we  obtain  a  quite  consistent  picture  adequate 
to  account  for  what  was  to  come  afterwards.  The  Catholic 
Church  life  must  have  had  a  beginning,  and  here  are  all 
the  elements  out  of  which  it  might  arise.  The  Church 
grew  up  with  a  ministry,  sacraments,  a  common  creed,  and 
a  common  worship.  Here  we  have  all  these,  but  in  an 
undeveloped  form,  and  these  again  grow  naturally  out  of 
elements  in  the  Gospels. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  assume,  as  some  do,  that  the 
ecclesiastical  elements  in  this  early  period  are  the  inventions 
of  later  thought,  we  are  left  with  no  explanation  of  the 
origin  or  growth  of  the  Church.  It  becomes  inexplicable. 
We  cannot,  indeed,  be  certain  of  the  accuracy  of  every 
detail;  there  may  be  some  of  the  heightened  colour  which 
is  the  result  of  a  distant  view.  What  is  maintained  is  that 
the  historical  sequence  of  events  and  the  development  of 
Christian  institutions  is  naturally  and  correctly  portrayed, 
and  that  it  is  not  legitimate  to  substitute  for  an  account 
written  in  the  first  century  a  fancy  picture  constructed  by 
the  imagination  of  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth  century. 

II 

How  long  the  earliest  period  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
lasted  it  is  difficult  to  say.1  It  may  have  been  only  one 
year  or  even  a  few  months;  it  may  have  been  as  much  as 
seven  years.  At  any  rate,  the  picture  which  is  presented 
to  us  shews  that  there  were  in  it  all  the  potentialities  of 
expansion  and  growth  which  became  full  of  energy  and 
life  so  soon  as  occasion  demanded.  As  so  often  happens, 
what  seemed  at  the  time  a  small  change  initiated  a  series 

1  The  narrative  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  gives  no  indication 
of  any  value,  and  modern  opinion  has  varied  between  those  who 
place  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  as  early  as  the  year  a.d.  30,  and 
those  who  place  it  seven  years  later.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to 
reconcile  the  earlier  date  with  the  fact  that  already  there  was  in 
Damascus  a  body  of  Christians  sufficiently  numerous  to  make  a 
persecution  seem  necessary,  and  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  appears 
to  suggest  a  series  of  events  extending  over  some  years.  The  death 
of  Stephen  was  probably  not  earlier  than  a.d.  33  or  34,  and  perhaps 
as  late  as  a.d.  37. 


THE  SEVEN 


57 

of  events  of  far-reaching  importance,  which  transformed  the 
small  community  at  Jerusalem  into  the  Universal  Church. 

The  occasion  was  a  dispute  among  the  members  of  the 
community  on  the  distribution  of  alms.1  The  Greek¬ 
speaking  widows  thought  that  they  were  neglected.  To 
meet  the  crisis  and  to  relieve  the  Apostles  of  secular  work 
seven  new  officials  were  appointed,  whose  business  it  was 
to  "  serve  tables,”  that  is,  to  assist  in  financial  matters 
and  charitable  distribution. 

The  first  question  of  interest  which  arises  is  this:  Was 
this  the  institution  of  the  order  of  deacons  ?  Now  that  is 
the  sort  of  question  which  we  are  always  rather  too  anxious 
to  ask,  and  to  which  we  shall  not  receive  a  very  satisfactory 
answer,  for  it  means  reading  into  an  early  period  later 
ideas.  We  must  not  try  to  find  more  than  the  narrative 
contains.  Nothing  suggests  that  the  Church  and  the 
Apostles  at  that  time  had  any  idea  in  their  minds  that  they 
were  doing  more  than  dealing  with  an  emergency.  For  the 
first  time  they  were  solemnly  appointing  members  of  the 
community  to  hold  office.  Their  action  had  quite  un¬ 
expected  consequences,  and  it  was  therefore  looked  back 
to  as  marking  an  epoch.  It  created  a  precedent  which 
Was  afterwards  followed.  The  name  diakonos,  or  minister, 
too,  would  quickly  and  naturally  be  specialized,  just  as 
we  shall  find  later  that  the  name  “  bishop,”  originally  used 
in  quite  a  general  sense  of  the  ministry,  became  specialized  to 
one  particular  office.  The  idea  of  an  order  of  deacons  would 
grow  up  because  other  communities,  following  the  example 
of  Jerusalem,  appointed  officers  to  deal  with  charitable 
funds,  and  so  they  became  a  regular  element  in  the  Church.2 

1  Acts  vi.  1-6. 

2  The  word  SuiKovog  does  not  occur  in  the  narrative  and  the  word 
CuiKOvia  is  used  in  quite  a  general  way — iv  tij  dicucoviy  ry  KaOrj/xepivry 
.  .  .  Siaicovelp  Tpair'^aig  .  .  ,  ry  SiaKov'Kp  tov  \oyov.  The  word  Siaicovog 
occurs  Phil.  i.  i,  avv  imaicoTroig  icai  diaicovoig,  and  i  Tim.  iii.  8-12,  where  it 
implies  a  well-known  and  established  office.  On  the  Deacons  see 
Lightfoot,  Christian  Ministry,  pp.  10-17,  who  discusses  and  dismisses 
the  idea  that  there  was  any  connection  with  the  Chazan  of  the 
synagogue;  Gwatkin  in  Hastings’  Dictionary,  vol.  i.,  pp.  574,  575 ; 
Armitage  Robinson  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  vol.  i.,  pp.  1038-1040; 
Schmiedel,  ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  3132,  3133,  who  gets  rid  of  all 
references  in  New  Testament  times.  See  also  Dissertation  D,  “  Pres¬ 
byters  and  Deacons.” 


58 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


The  second  point  of  interest  is  the  method  of  appointment. 
While  the  initiative  is  undertaken  by  the  Apostles,  the 
action  is  that  of  the  whole  Church:  “  and  the  saying  pleased 
the  whole  multitude.”  The  “  seven  ”  are  chosen  by  the 
community.  They  are  men  who  have  a  good  repute,  and 
are  “  full  of  the  Spirit  and  of  wisdom.”  They  are  presented 
by  the  community  to  the  Apostles,  and  are  appointed  to 
their  office  by  prayer  and  the  laying  on  of  hands.  Now 
here  we  have  fully  developed  all  the  elements  which  con¬ 
stitute  a  proper  ecclesiastical  ordination — vocation,  or  the 
call  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  selection  by  the  community, 
the  public  testimony,  the  presentation  on  the  one  side,  the 
laying  on  of  hands  with  prayer  on  the  other.1  These 
elements  are  present  in  the  developed  form  of  ordination 
which  we  know  in  the  third  and  following  centuries,  and 
it  is  remarkable  to  find  anything  so  complete  at  the  begin¬ 
ning.  It  may  be  suggested  that  the  first  definite  appoint¬ 
ment  would  naturally  form  a  model,-  on  which  later  rules 
would  be  based.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  author  of 
the  Acts  that  he  does  not  generally  repeat  what  he  has 
once  narrated.  He  lays  stress  upon  Baptism  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  his  narrative,  but  not  afterwards.  He  dwells  on 
the  great  epochs  in  the  expansion  of  Christianity.  He 
gives  typical  examples  of  St.  Paul’s  speeches.  We  may 
reasonably  conclude  therefore  that  the  author  gives  here 
a  typical  example  of  the  method  which  prevailed  in  the 
Apostolic  Church  of  appointment  to  office  or,  as  we  should 
call  it,  ordination,  and  that  the  method  here  described 
became  the  regular  custom  of  the  Church. 

The  whole  incident  exhibits  in  a  marked  way  the  power 
of  the  Church  to  meet  a  new  situation.  It  is  the  first  great 
change,  the  parent  of  many  others.  There  was  no  far 
outlook  into  the  future,  but  an  exhibition  of  that  wise 
statesmanship,  that  adaptation  to  circumstances  which  does 

1  The  following  are  the  different  stages : 

i.  e7ri(TK6\pacr6e  avdpag  i £  vpCjv  .  .  .  icai  t^tXk^avro. 

ii.  avdpag  f.iaprvpovp,tvovg  .  .  .  TrXppeig  nvei'ixarog  icai  oo<piac  .  .  .  avdpa 
7r\>ipT]  7 ricrrecug  icai  TrvevjJLarog  ciyiov. 

iii.  ovg  torijcrav  ivunriov  ru)v  cnrooToXoiV. 

iv.  ovg  Karaurr]<TOnev  E7r i  r^g  \ptiag  ravrijg  .  .  .  icai  7rpo<rev^afxivoi  k7ct0t}Kav 
avroXg  rag  ^eT pag. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  CHURCH 


59 

the  right  thing  to  meet  an  emergency.  For  the  first  time 
the  Church  appoints  a  new  body  of  officials.  Their  function 
is  not  what  we  might  hold  to  be  very  lofty.  It  was  inten¬ 
tionally  inferior  to  that  of  the  Apostles.  Yet  it  is  recog¬ 
nized  that  the  occasion  is  one  of  importance.  A  solemn 
procedure  is  inaugurated.  The  whole  communhy  works 
together.  They  elect,  we  do  not  know  how,  those  who 
had  shewn  themselves  most  suitable.  The  community  acts, 
as  always,  through  its  proper  ministers,  and  they  make  the 
appointment  according  to  the  form  which  had  prevailed  in 
the  ancient  Church  and  the  Jewish  schools.1 


Ill 

But  this  trouble  about  the  widows  and  the  appointment 
of  “  the  seven  ”  had  far  more  wide-reaching  effects.  We 
need  not  now  dwell  on  the  history :  how  the  appointment 
of  Hellenistic  officials  led  to  the  growth  of  the  more  uni¬ 
versal  elements  in  Christianity;  how  the  liberal  theology  of 
Stephen  produced  persecution,  and  persecution  made  the 
Church  realize  its  missionary  character;  how,  incidentally, 
the  martyrdom  of  St.  Stephen  caused  the  conversion  of 
St.  Paul  with  all  its  infinite  consequences;  how,  inevitably, 
a  religion  which  was  universal  in  its  essence  broke  the 
bonds  of  Judaism,  passed  on  first  to  Samaritan  and 
then  to  Gentile,  and  a  great  movement  began  which 
spread  Christianity  through  the  Roman  Empire  and 
even  beyond,  and  taught  the  Church  that  it  was 
Catholic. 

We  are  concerned  now  with  changes  which  were  the 
inevitable  result  of  this  expansion.  These  were  the  growth 

1  Cf.  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  52:  “  But  the  appointment 
was  not  only  a  notable  recognition  of  the  Hellenistic  element  in 
the  Ecclesia  at  Jerusalem,  a  prelude  of  greater  events  to  come,  but 
also  a  sign  that  the  Ecclesia  was  to  be  an  Ecclesia  indeed,  not  a 
mere  horde  of  men  ruled  absolutely  by  the  Apostles,  but  a  true 
body  politic,  in  which  different  functions  were  assigned  to  different 
members,  and  a  share  of  responsibility  rested  upon  the  members 
at  large,  each  and  all;  while  every  work  for  the  Ecclesia,  high  and 
low,  was  of  the  nature  of  a  ‘  ministration,’  a  true  rendering  of  a 
servant’s  service.” 


6o 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


of  a  missionary  ministry,  the  organization  of  the  loca 
churches,  and  the  development  of  a  central  authority  at 
Jerusalem. 

The  Church  becomes  now  (what  it  was  always  to  be)  a 
missionary  society,  and  very  rapidly  developed  a  complete 
ministry  adapted  for  missionary  work.  No  doubt  at  first, 
as  always,  preaching  and  teaching  in  new  places  and  the 
making  of  new  converts  might  be  the  work  of  believers 
who  held  no  definite  office,  but  very  quickly  those  who  had 
special  gifts  would  be  differentiated  from  the  general  body 
of  disciples  and  recognized  by  the  Church.  A  definite 
ministerial  order  thus  grew  up. 

It  is  curious  to  notice  how  little  stress  was  laid  on  the 
missionary  officers  of  the  Church  until  the  eyes  of  historians 
were  opened  by  the  discovery  of  the  Did  ache.  Theological 
controversy  had  concentrated  attention  upon  the  origin  of 
those  orders  in  the  ministry  which  had  survived.  But  the 
importance  of  the  Didache  lies  not  so  much  in  new  facts 
as  in  opening  our  eyes  to  see  what  was  in  documents  which 
we  already  possessed.1  For  the  first  time  it  put  before 
us  clearly  the  existence  of  two  classes  of  Christian  ministers, 
those  whose  principal  functions  were  preaching  and  teach¬ 
ing,  whose  work  was  not  confined  to  any  one  locality, 
and  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  were  ministers  of  a  local 
community,  whose  first  duties  were  those  of  administration 
and  government,  although  they  were  never  confined  to  these. 
The  latter,  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  ultimately  ac¬ 
quired  the  sole  right  of  exercising  spiritual  functions  which 
in  the  beginning  they  had  possessed  only  to  a  limited  extent, 

1  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  Bishop  Lightfoot,  before  the 
discovery  of  the  Didache,  realized  quite  clearly  the  importance  of 
the  preaching  ministry.  Referring  to  the  two  lists  of  the  ministry 
he  says:  “  Neither  list  can  have  been  intended  to  be  exhaustive. 
In  both  alike  the  work  of  converting  unbelievers  and  founding 
congregations  holds  the  foremost  place,  while  the  permanent  govern¬ 
ment  and  instruction  of  the  several  churches  is  kept  in  the  back¬ 
ground.  This  prominence  was  necessary  in  the  earliest  age  of  the 
Gospel.  The  Apostles,  prophets,  evangelists,  all  range  under  the 
former  head.  .  .  .  From  the  subordinate  place,  which  it  thus 
occupies  in  the  notices  of  St.  Paul,  the  permanent  ministry  gradually 
emerged,  as  the  Church  assumed  a  more  settled  form,  and  the 
higher  but  temporary  offices,  such  as  the  apostolate,  fall  away  ” 
(Lightfoot,  The  Christian  Ministry,  pp.  7,  8). 


APOSTLES  6j 

and  became  inheritors  of  the  position  originally  occupied 
by  the  missionary  ministry.1 

With  the  key  that  has  now  been  provided  we  turn  to 
the  New  Testament  and  find  the  interpretation  of  it  im¬ 
mensely  facilitated.  We  find  (now  that  we  can  see  it)  the 
distinction  between  missionary  and  local  ministers  clearly 
existing.  We  notice  that,  as  was  most  natural,  the  r  jrmer 
were  more  important  at  this  stage  of  development.  We 
understand  why  so  little  is  often  said  about  presbyters 
and  deacons,  for  then*  office  was  not  as  yet  conspicuous. 
We  see  above  all  what  the  force  was  which  gave  homo¬ 
geneity  and  continuity  to  the  Christian  Church.  Not  only 
the  Apostles  (in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  word),  but  a  vast 
number  of  other  accredited  preachers  and  teachers  must 
have  been  continually  passing  backwards  and  forwards 
among  the  churches  and  have  prevented  the  isolation  and 
stagnation  of  the  local  communities. 

,  The  missionaries  of  the  Christian  Church  were  described 
as  apostles,  prophets,  evangelists,  and  teachers.2  The 
word  “  apostle”  was  used  in  a  double  sense.  It  was  most 
commonly  used  of  the  Twelve,  but  it  was  not  confined  to 
them.  In  its  wider  sense  it  probably  meant  a  Christian 
missionary  solemnly  sent  forth  by  the  Church,  as  Barnabas 
and  Saul  had  been,  to  preach  the  Gospel  and  found  churches. 

1  The  term  “  missionary/’  which  I  suggested  first  in  1906,  seems 
to  be  the  best  to  describe  the  difference  between  the  two  classes 
of  ministers;  the  term  “  charismatic  ”  which  is  so  popular  is  based 
upon  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the  Apostolic  age.  It  sug¬ 
gests  that  “  prophets  ”  had  a  charisma  and  “  presbyters  ”  had  not. 
This  would  have  seemed  absurd  to  St.  Paul.  His  argument  in 
1  Cor.  xii.  is  that  everyone  in  the  Church  has  his  gift  from  the  Spirit, 
and  that  he  must  use  that  gift  and  not  be  jealous  of  or  at  strife  with 
those  who  have  other  gifts,  and  that  the  gifts  are  given  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole  body.  It  further  suggests  that  those  who  had 
a  charisma  were  not  ordained,  while  deacons,  for  example,  who 
had  no  charisma,  were  ordained.  That,  again,  is  a  position  which 
cannot  be  proved  (see  below,  p.  84).  The  Seven  were  ordained 
because  they  had  a  charisma,  and  Timothy  received  the  gift 
of  the  Spirit  for  his  special  work  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  of  the 
presbyters.  See  Armitage  Robinson,  in  Essays  on  the  Early  History 
of  the  Church  and  the  Ministry,  edited  by  H.  B.  Swete,  D.D.  (Mac¬ 
millan  and  Co.,  1918),  “  The  Christian  Ministry  in  the  Apostolic 
and  Sub- Apostolic  Periods,”  pp.  60-79.  His  argument  is  con¬ 
clusive  as  regards  the  charismatic  idea. 

2  For  details  as  to  the  work  of  these  and  reference  to  authorities 
see  Dissertation  E,  “  The  Missionary  Ministry.” 


62  THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 

They  were  probably  what  were  known  as  the  apostles  of 
the  churches.1 

The  prophet  resembled  the  apostle  as  being  an  officer 
of  the  whole  Church,  and  not  confined  in  his  duties  to  one 
locality.  He  differed  in  that  his  work  was  primarily  that 
of  edifying  the  faithful  rather  than  of  converting  the  un¬ 
believer.  His  gifts  were  those  of  inspired  oratory,  of 
insight  into  God’s  dealings  with  mankind,  a  strong  grasp 
of  spiritual  truth,  earnestness,  a  power  of  arousing  religious 
enthusiasm,  consolation,  exhortation,  revelation. 

The  evangelist  is  less  often  mentioned.  The  word  was 
probably  used  of  those  engaged  in  missionary  work  who 
had  not  the  same  authority  as  the  Apostles,  and  it  was 
generally  perhaps  a  synonym  for  those  who  were  often 
called  apostles  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  term.  Philip,  one 
of  the  Seven,  called  “  the  evangelist  ”  in  the  Acts,  was 
spoken  of  in  later  tradition  as  “  the  apostle.”  Timothy 
is  included  in  the  general  use  of  the  term  apostle  in  one 
place,  and  seems  to  be  called  an  evangelist  in  another. 
This  was  natural.  There  was  always  a  tendency  to  limit 
the  term  apostle  to  the  Twelve,  or  to  the  Twelve  with 
St.  Paul,  and  this  would  naturally  suggest  the  employment 
of  another  name  for  the  ordinary  missionary.  But  the 
specialized  use  of  the  word  evangelist  did  not  live. 

The  “  teacher  ”  held  a  definite  office  in  the  early  Church, 
but  the  term  is  not  common.  Probably  there  were  few 
teachers  who  did  not  hold  other  office,  and  teaching  would 
tend  to  become  the  business  of  the  local  ministry.  There 
would  be  great  danger  in  the  itinerant  teacher,  a  man 
often  of  no  position  and  doubtful  credentials,  who  might 
easily  be  an  impostor.  The  "  teacher,”  therefore,  although 
he  survived  the  Apostolic  period,  was  never  of  importance, 
and  at  a  later  date  was  rather  an  individual  of  exceptional 
power  than  the  member  of  a  particular  order.  He  was 
generally,  but  not  always,  a  bishop  or  presbyter. 

The  Christian  missionaries  were  in  the  first  place  a  body 
of  teachers  and  preachers.  They  were  those  who  spake 
the  word  of  God.  They  had  received  for  this  task  the 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  an  especial  way.  They  were  also 

1  2  Cor.  viii.  23,  ctde\(poi  y'jfiiov,  a.7r6<JTo\oi  iKK\ii<riiov - 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONARIES 


^3 

the  leaders  in  all  spiritual  functions.  They  are  described 
in  the  New  Testament  as  ministering  in  holy  things,1  as 
leaders  in  prayer;  they  are  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints, 
for  the  work  of  ministry,  for  building  up  the  body  of  Christ.2 
It  is  quite  in  accordance  with  their  functions  that  we  find 
in  the  Didache  that  it  is  the  privilege  of  “  the  prophets  ” 
to  offer  the  solemn  Eucharistic  thanksgiving  as  they  desire, 
and  that  they  are  designated  as  the  high  priests  of  the 
Church.3  They  had  also  a  position  of  authority.  Every 
apostle  was  considered  to  have  in  a  special  sense  authority 
over  the  Church  which  he  had  founded;  and  the  prophets 
and  other  ministers  of  the  word  were  included  in  the  number 
of  the  chief  men  or  rulers.4  When  any  of  them  were 
present  they  would  take  the  lead  in  preaching  and  praying, 
and  great  authority  would  attach  to  their  words  and  advice. 

It  has  already  been  suggested  how  important  a  part  these 
missionaries  played  in  creating  the  homogeneity  of  the 
Church.  Few  communities  could  be  long  isolated  from 
the  general  life,  and  new  ideas  would  travel  quickly  and 
easily  from  place  to  place.  The  comparative  paucity  of 
references  is  no  ground  for  thinking  that  these  missionaries 
were  not  numerous  and  important.  It  is  the  characteristic 
of  all  natural  and  spontaneous  literature,  like  that  of  the 
New  Testament,  that  it  does  not  dwell  on  the  obvious  and 
ordinary,  but  only  alludes  to  it.  And  we  have  really  quite 
enough  evidence  to  make  us  realize  how  important  and 
numerous  they  were.  Our  Lord  had  foretold  that  He 
would  send  prophets  and  wise  men  and  scribes,  and  that 

1  \tlTOVpyOVVTMV  CIVT&V  T(p  K vpup,  Acts  xiii.  2. 

2  Eph.  iv.  12. 

3  Did.  10,  “  But  permit  the  prophets  to  offer  thanksgiving  as 
much  as  they  desire.” 

11.  “  And  no  prophet  when  he  ordereth  a  table  in  the  Spirit  shall 
eat  of  it;  otherwise  he  is  a  false  prophet.” 

13.  “  Every  firstfruit  then  of  the  produce  of  the  wine- vat  and 
of  the  threshing-floor,  of  thy  oxen  and  of  thy  sheep,  thou  shalt  take 
and  give  as  the  firstfruits  to  the  prophets;  for  they  are  your  chief 
priests.” 

15.  “  Appoint  therefore  for  yourselves  bishops  and  deacons 
worthy  of  the  Lord,  men  who  are  meek  and  not  lovers  of  money, 
and  true  and  approved:  for  unto  you  they  also  perform  the  service 
of  the  prophets  and  teachers.  Therefore  despise  them  not;  for 
they  are  your  honourable  men  along  with  the  prophets  and  teachers.” 

4  pyovpevot.  Acts  xv.  23;  cf.  Heb.  xiii.  7,  17. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


64 

they  would  be  scourged  and  persecuted  and  put  to  death.1 
The  Church  was  built  on  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles 
and  prophets.  That  which  had  been  hidden  in  the  genera¬ 
tions  past  had  been  revealed  in  the  Spirit  to  Christ’s  holy 
Apostles  and  prophets.2  The  writer  of  the  Apocalypse  is 
filled  with  the  thought  of  the  prophets  who  had  given  their 
blood  for  the  Church.  In  Babylon  the  blood  of  the  saints 
had  been  shed,  therefore  “  rejoice  over  her,  thou  heaven, 
and  ye  saints,  and  ye  apostles,  and  ye  prophets;  for  God 
hath  judged  your  judgement  on  her.”3  St.  Paul,  asking 
whether  an  apostolic  ministry  has  been  sent  forth  to  bring 
to  the  people  of  Israel  the  message  about  Christ,  is  able  to 
answer  in  the  words  of  the  great  evangelical  prophet,  “  How 
beautiful  are  the  feet  of  them  that  are  his  evangelists  of 
glad  tidings,”4  and  thinking  of  the  great  army  of  apostles, 
prophets,  evangelists,  teachers,  and  saints  who  had  received 
the  divine  commission,  he  adds  in  the  words  of  the  book 
of  Psalms-:  "  Their  sound  has  gone  out  into  all  the  earth, 
and  their  words  unto  the  ends  of  the  world.”5 

IV 

The  persecution  on  the  death  of  Stephen  not  only  taught 
the  Church  its  missionary  vocation:  it  also  completed  the 
breach  between  Church  and  synagogue.  The  Christians 
would  henceforth  be  expelled  from  the  synagogues,  and  it 
would  be  necessary  for  them  to  found  new  associations. 
In  this  way  began  the  local  Christian  ministry  and  the 
institution  of  Christian  presbyters.6 

The  presbyters  are  first  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  shortly  before  the  persecution  under  Herod. 
Barnabas  and  Saul  are  represented  as  taking  contributions 
from  the  Church  at  Antioch  to  the  brethren  in  Judaea  who  are 

1  St.  Matt,  xxiii.  34;  cf.  x.  41. 

2  Eph.  ii.  20,  iii.  5.  3  Rev.  xviii.  20. 

4  Rom.  X.  15,  UQ  < opatoi  01  irootQ  ro>v  evayyeXi'Coi-ifViov  ayaQa. 

5  Rom.  x.  18. 

6  On  the  Presbyters  see  Dissertation  D,  “  Presbyters  and  Deacons.” 

Most  of  the  points  referred  to  here  have  been  treated  more  fully 
in  the  article  in  the  Church  Quarterly  Review  for  January,  1906, 
referred  to  above. 


THE  PRESBYTERS 


65 

suffering  from  famine,  and  as  giving  them  to  the  presbyters. 
The  context  would  suggest  that  it  was  the  presbyters,  not 
only  in  Jerusalem,  but  in  Judaea  generally.1  Subsequently 
they  are  several  times  mentioned  in  Jerusalem,  generally 
in  the  combination  “  apostles  and  presbyters.”2  St.  Paul  is 
stated  to  have  established  presbyters  in  all  the  cities  in 
which  he  had  founded  churches  during  his  first  missionary 
journey,3  and  we  may  assume  that  the  author  of  the  Acts 
is  telling  us  on  the  first  occasion  when  this  occurred  what 
became  the  normal  practice.  At  the  end  of  the  third 
journey,  when  St.  Paul  wishes  to  bid  farewell  to  the  Church  at 
Ephesus  it  is  the  presbyters  of  the  Church  that  he  summons 
to  Miletus.4  Directions  are  given  for  their  appointment 
in  the  Epistle  to  Titus,6  and  they  are  mentioned  in  the 
First  Epistle  to  Timothy,6  the  First  Epistle  of  St.  Peter,7 
and  the  Epistle  of  St.  James,8  while  the  Second  and  Third 
Epistles  of  St.  John  are  written  by  one  who  calls  himself 
a  presbyter.0  If  we  pass  outside  the  limit  of  the  New 
Testament,  we  find  early  evidence  of  the  widespread  pre¬ 
valence  of  presbyters,  and  as  soon  as  we  have  full  historical 
information  a  college  of  presbyters  is  an  essential  element 
in  every  church. 

But  the  evidence  for  their  existence  in  the  Apostolic  age 
as  a  normal  and  regular  ministry  is  even  stronger.  A 
careful  and  impartial  survey  of  New  Testament  language 
makes  it  clear  that  the  presbyters  were  often  called 
"  bishops  ”  or  “  overseers,”  and  also  “  pastors,”  and  that 
when  either  of  these  is  referred  to  presbyters  are  intended.10 

1  Acts  xi.  29,  “  And  the  disciples  .  .  .  determined  to  send  relief 
unto  the  brethren  that  dwelt  in  Judaea,  which  also  they  did,  sending 
it  to  the  presbyters  by  the  hand  of  Barnabas  and  Saul.”  The  word 
Trpi<jfivTepoQ  will  be  translated  ”  elder  ”  of  Jews,  “  presbyter  ”  of 
Christians,  unless  there  is  any  stress  in  the  latter  case  on  the  question 
of  age.  2  ActsTxv/  2,r4,  22,  23,  xxi.  18. 

8  Acts  xiv.  23,  xup°Tovri<javTt.Q  de  avro'ig  tear  i.KK\r)aiav  TrptcrfivTkpovg 
‘rrpocrevKcip.evoi  fiSTO.  vi]Gth(x)v  tt aphQzvTO  avTOvg  rtf 5  K vpi(p  eig  ov  Treni<TT6VKU<7av. 

4  Acts  xx.  17.  *  Titus  i.  5.  •  1  Tim.  iv.  14,  v.  1,  17,  19. 

7  1  St.  Peter  v.  1.  8  St.  James  v.  14. 

9  2  St.  John  1;  3  St.  John  1. 

10  It  is  needless  here  to  discuss  this  point  in  detail  as  it  is  now 
generally  accepted.  The  most  important  discussion  is  that  of 
Lightfoot,  Philippians  :  “  The  Synonyms  Bishop  and  Presbyter,” 
pp.  95-99  (ed.  4).  See  also  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  pp.  97-104, 
who  supports  Lightfoot’s  conclusions  with  perhaps  excessive  subtlety. 

5 


66 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


There  is  sufficient  evidence  for  thinking  that  normally,  if 
not  universally,  in  the  Apostolic  period  each  local  church 
had  its  body  of  presbyters,  an(b  Clement  of  Rome,  writing 
at  the  close  of  the  first  century,  correctly  describes  what 
happened  when  he  says  that  the  Apostles,  “  preaching 
everywhere  in  country  and  town,  appointed  their  firstfruits 
when  they  had  proved  them  by  the  Spirit  to  be  bishops 
and  deacons  to  them  that  should  believe.”* 1 

What  was  the  origin  of  the  office  ?  An  attempt  has  been 
made  to  find  a  Greek  origin.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  in 
Greek  inscriptions  in  Asia  Minor  and  elsewhere  elders  are 
mentioned.2  No  doubt  this  is  true.  The  rule  of  the  “  elder  ” 

For  some  time  a  rival  theory,  suggested  by  the  late  Dr.  Hatch  and 
worked  out  with  great  vigour  by  Professor  Harnack,  obtained  some 
popularity,  according  to  which  the  bishops  and  deacons  represented 
one  type  of  organization  and  the  presbyters  another.  This  has 
been  criticized  conclusively  as  to  certain  points  in  the  opinion  of 
the  present  writer  by  Loening  ( Die  Gemeindeverfassung  des  XJrchris- 
tenthums),  and  by  Schmiedel  in  his  article  on  the  Ministry  in  the 
Encyclopedia  Biblica,  who  strongly  supports  the  identity  of  episcopos 
and  presbyteros.  The  beginning  of  Lightfoot’s  essay  is  interesting: 
“  It  is  a  fact  now  generally  recognized  by  theologians  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  that  in  the  language  of  the  New  Testament  the  same 
officer  in  the  Church  is  called  indifferently  *  bishop  ’  {hriuKOTrog) 
and  *  elder  *  or  ‘  presbyter  ’  (Trpecflvrepog).”  It  is  curious  that 
just  after  this  strong  assertion  had  been  made — one  quite  justified 
— a  new  theory  was  started.  The  whole  subject  is  discussed  by 
the  present  writer  in  the  article  of  the  Church  Quarterly  Review 
referred  to  above,  and  in  Dissertation  D.  The  particular  point 
to  emphasize  is  that  the  original  and  official  name  was  “  presbyter," 
and  that  other  titles,  such  as  “  episcopos  "  and  “  pastor,"  were  used 
as  descriptive  designations. 

1  Clem.  Rom.  I  Cor.  42,  Kara  x^PaQ  °vv  Kai  noXeig  KrjpviriTovTEg  < aOk- 
arctvov  rag  cnrapxag  ctiruiv ,  SoKindaavreg  Tip  TTvevfiaTi ,  elg  hrimcoTrovg  tea ( 

Siaicopov s  tCjv  peWovTUJv  Tnortveiv.  This  passage  will,  of  course,  have 
to  be  referred  to  more  than  once.  It  may  be  suggested  at  present 
that  any  statement  contained  in  Clement  has  a  right  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  sound  historical  tradition.  He  wrote  little  more  than 
thirty  years  after  the  death,  in  Rome,  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter, 
and  probably  had  seen  and  heard  them  both.  Moreover,  his  state¬ 
ment  is  stiongly  corroborated  both  by  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
and  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  Unless  we  are  prepared  to  build  our 
theories  on  the  evidence  that  we  possess  no  history  is  possible. 
But  there  is  a  certain  class  of  writers  who  seem  to  think  that 
the  first  postulate  of  true  history  is  that  no  statement  in  an 
ancient  author  is  to  be  believed. 

2  Evidence  of  the  occurrence  of  the  word  Trpeafivrtpog  in  inscrip¬ 
tions  is  given  by  Hatch,  Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  65,  66,  but  it  amounts 
to  very  little.  It  is  strongly  criticized  by  Loening,  op.  cit.,  pp.  64,  65, 
who  supports  very  fully  the  derivation  of  the  Christian  “  presbyter  " 
from  the  Jewish  “  elder."  The  theory  of  Hatch,  and  apparently 


ORIGIN  OF  PRESBYTERS  67 

is  as  widespread  as  human  nature.  But  the  evidence  is 
not  in  favour  of  any  wide  prevalence  of  the  title,  nor  is  the 
analogy  with  the  Christian  institution  at  all  close.  It  is  a 
wise  rule  in  historical  research  always  to  seek  for  the  simplest 
explanation  of  an  event  or  institution,  and  in  this  case  there 
is  a  very  simple  one  close  at  hand.  We  know  that  in  all 
the  Jewish  communities  of  Palestine  there  were  bodies  of 
elders  who  took  part  in  secular  administration,  and  had  a 
position  of  honour  and  dignity  in  the  synagogue.  It  is  in 
accordance  with  all  probability  that  the  Christians  when 
expelled  from  the  synagogue  should  organize  themselves  in 
the  same  way.  They  would  form  a  community  very  much 
on  the  same  lines  as  that  which  they  had  left,  and  habit 
and  custom  would  naturally  make  them  call  officers  by  the 
name  with  which  they  were  familiar,  especially  as  it  had 
its  source  in  the  Old  Testament.  This  theory  exactly 
corresponds  with  the  time  and  place  at  which,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  our  documents,  the  presbyterate  arose. 
It  has  been  wisely  pointed  out  by  Bishop  Light  foot  that 
the  reason  why  no  account  is  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  first 
appointment  of  presbyters  is  that  nothing  new  happened. 
The  Christians,  being  expelled  from  the  synagogue,  organized 
themselves  as  another  synagogue.  There  was  no  new  de¬ 
parture  as  there  had  been  when  the  Seven  were  appointed, 
and  therefore  no  record  was  preserved  of  what  seemed  so 
obvious  and  natural.  And  if  this  be  so  the  name  points 
decisively  to  Palestine.  While  the  old  Jewish  word  “  elder  ” 
was  that  which  prevailed  there,  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Jews 
in  Greek  countries  to  adopt  a  Greek  method  of  speaking, 
and  to  call  their  governing  body  gerousia ,  or  senate,  and 
its  members  archontes,  or  rulers.  If  the  presbyters  had 
been  first  appointed,  as  has  been  suggested,  in  Asia  Minor 
or  in  Gentile  churches,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  they  would 
have  obtained  this  name.* 1 

of  Schmiedel,  is  that  in  Jewish-Christian  churches  the  “  presbyters  ” 
had  a  Jewish  origin:  in  Gentile  churches  they  arose  independently. 
This  complicated  theory  has  nothing  to  recommend  it  except  that 
it  is  inconsistent  with  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

1  The  fullest  account  of  the  organization  of  the  Jewish  communities 
is  given  by  Schurer,  Geschichte  des  judischen  Volkes  im  Zeitalter  Jesu 
Christi,  ii.,  p.  501  (ed.  4).  A  summary  of  his  conclusions  by  the 
present  writer  will  be  found  in  the  Church  Quarterly  Review,  Octo¬ 
ber,  1904,  pp.  54-56. 


68 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


An  argument  which  is  sometimes  used  against  this  view 
is  that  whereas  the  Christian  presbyter  is  entirely  concerned 
with  ecclesiastical  matters,  the  Jewish  prototype  was  a 
secular  officer.  Although  he  had  a  position  of  honour,  and 
even  authority,  in  the  synagogue,  he  was  not  the  ruler  of 
the  synagogue.  It  is  argued,  therefore,  that  the  Jewish 
elder  could  not  be  the  prototype  of  the  Christian  presbyter. 
This  argument  entirely  overlooks  the  general  character  of 
the  relation  between  Jewish  and  Christian  institutions.  It 
is  not  maintained  that  all  the  features  of  the  new  office 
were  taken  from  the  old,  but  only  that  the  name  and  form 
of  an  institution  was  suggested  by  what  the  early  Christians 
had  been  accustomed  to.  The  spirit  was  necessarily  quite 
different.  The  relation  is  in  fact  a  particular  instance  of 
that  emancipation  of  Judaism  which  was  accomplished  in 
Christianity.  Judaism  was  a  nation  and  a  church.  The 
spiritual  elements  that  made  it  a  church  were  taken  over 
by  Christianity,  which  discarded  the  nationalism.  So,  too, 
the  Jewish  communities  in  Palestine  were  partly  secular, 
partly  religious.  Their  officers  had  secular  as  well  as 
spiritual  functions.  The  Christian  communities  were 
entirely  non-political,  and  the  Jewish  "  elder,”  therefore, 
became  by  a  natural  process  of  development  the  Christian 
“  presbyter.” 

We  should  have  to  pass  beyond  the  evidence  at  our 
command  if  we  attempted  to  describe  the  functions  of  the 
presbytery  during  the  Apostolic  period  in  any  but  general 
language,  but  we  have  sufficient  information  for  our  pur¬ 
pose.  They  were  the  chief  officers  of  the  local  churches. 
Probably  the  statement  in  the  Didache  that  they  performed 
in  each  place  the  functions  of  prophets  and  teachers  is  true 
of  the  early  as  well  as  of  the  later  period.1  They  were  the 
rulers  and  administrators  of  the  community.  “  If  a  man 
knoweth  not  how  to  rule  his  own  house  how  shall  he  take 
care  of  the  church  of  God  ?”2  Many  of  them,  but  not  all, 
were  the  teachers  of  the  Church.  "  Let  the  presbyters  that 
rule  well  be  counted  worthy  of  double  honour,  especially 
those  who  labour  in  the  word  and  in  teaching.”3  He  is 

1  Didache  15,  vp'iv  yap  Xeirovpyovcri  Kal  civroi  ti)v  Xeirovpyiav  tuiv  7 rpo- 

<l>t]Tu>v  Kal  didaa/caXujy.  2  j  Tim.  iii.  5.  8  i  Tim.  v.  17. 


THE  APOSTLES 


69 

rs  to  hold  to  the  faithful  word  which  is  according  to  the 
teaching,  that  he  may  be  able  both  to  exhort  in  the  sound 
doctrine  and  to  convict  the  gainsay ers.”1  They  would 
have  the  place  of  honour  in  the  assembly  and  would  preside 
over  it,  and  if  there  were  no  prophets  or  teachers  present 
would  take  the  lead  in  the  worship  of  the  Church  and  the 
Eucharistic  services.  As  overseers  and  shepherds  they 
were  to  be  ensamples  to  the  flock,  to  tend  it,  to  guard  it 
from  evil,  and  when  the  Chief  Shepherd  should  appear 
they  would  receive  the  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not 
away.2 

V 

We  have  examined  various  ways  in  which  the  Church 
adapted  its  organization  to  the  condition  of  affairs  which 
arose  so  rapidly;  we  must  now  turn  back  to  the  Church  at 
Jerusalem  and  to  the  Apostles  and  ask  what  position  they 
occupy  in  the  altered  circumstances.  Do  they  retain  that 
position  of  supremacy  which  they  held  during  the  first  days 
of  the  Church  ? 

The  documents  which  we  possess  clearly  put  them  in  a 
place  of  authority.  At  every  crisis  in  affairs  they  take 
the  lead.  When  Philip  converts  the  Samaritans  the 
Apostles  at  Jerusalem  send  down  Peter  and  John.  Saul, 
after  his  conversion  is  taken  by  Barnabas  to  the  Apostles. 
Peter  has  to  give  an  account  of  the  baptism  of  Cornelius 
to  the  Apostles  and  brethren  in  Judaea.  When  difficulties 
arise  with  Jewish  Christians  the  Church  at  Antioch  sends 
Paul  and  Barnabas  to  Jerusalem  to  the  Apostles  and 
presbyters.  The  Acts  recognizes  the  supremacy  of  the 
Apostles  at  Jerusalem.  Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that 
this  is  correct.  It  is  corroborated  in  St.  Paul’s  language 
and  actions.  Much  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is 
obscure,  but  what  is  quite  clear  is,  that  whatever  opinion 
St.  Paul  may  have  held  of  the  relation  of  his  own  position 
to  that  of  the  older  Apostles,  their  authority  was  recognized 
by  the  Church,  and  it  was  necessary  for  his  full  success 
that  his  work  should  be  recognized  by  them.  So  again, 
when  he  claims  for  himself  the  privilege  of  an  Apostle,  he 

1  Titus  i.  9.  2  1  St.  Peter  v.  1-4. 


70 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


is  demanding  the  same  position  as  was  held  by  those  who 
were  in  Christ  before  him.1  All  our  evidence  proves  the 
leading  position  of  the  Apostles. 

The  position  of  importance  occupied  by  St.  Peter  and 
in  a  less  degree  by  St.  John  still  remains.  As  the  former 
had  been  the  leader  of  the  primitive  community,  so  he 
seems  to  have  been  the  leader  in  missionary  enterprise, 
and  records  of  his  work  in  this  direction  have  been  pre¬ 
served.2  It  was  he  who  took  the  first  step  towards  ad¬ 
mitting  into  the  Church  Gentiles  who  were  not  circumcised, 
and  his  work  in  preaching  to  the  Jews  earned  him  the  title 
of  the  “  Apostle  of  the  Circumcision.”3  But,  however 
prominent  may  have  been  his  position,  he  had  no  supremacy. 
We  are  told  that  the  Apostles  sent  Peter  and  John  to 
Samaria,  and  Peter  is  called  upon  to  give  an  account  to 
the  Apostles  and  brethren  of  his  action  in  baptizing  Cornelius. 
St.  Paul’s  language,  also,  when  St.  Peter  has  in  his  opinion 
acted  wrongly,  shews  that  he  considers  that  he  is  dealing 
with  one  who,  whatever  the  respect  felt  towards  him,  was 
on  an  equality  with  himself.  Supremacy  lies  in  the  hands 
of  the  Church  acting  through  the  Apostles  as  a  body. 

But  while  the  position  of  the  Apostles  in  the  Church 
remains  as  long  as  they  live,  a  change  comes  over  the 
Church  at  Jerusalem  which  is  undoubted  as  an  historical 
fact,  although  its  origin  and  to  a  certain  extent  its  charac¬ 
ter  must  remain  largely  a  matter  of  conjecture.  We  find 
that  a  leading  position  in  that  community  is  occupied  by 
James,  the  Lord’s  brother;  associated  with  the  Apostles  are 
presbyters;  and  on  the  occasion  of  the  last  visit  of  St.  Paul 
to  Jerusalem  there  are  no  Apostles  there.  In  particular, 
at  the  time  of  the  Council  in  Jerusalem,  the  Acts  no  longer 
speaks  of  Apostles  only,  but  of  Apostles  and  presbyters, 
while  the  place  of  president  seems  to  be  occupied  by  James. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  these  changes  ? 

1  i  Cor.  ix.  i,  5. 

2  Acts  viii.,  ix.f  x.  It  is  an  interesting  subject  for  speculation 
whether  the  account  of  St.  Peter’s  missionary  journeys  in  the 
Clementine  literature  was  merely  an  imaginative  reconstruction  of 
the  novelist  or  whether  there  was  an  independent  historical  tradition 
behind  it. 

3  Gal.  ii.  8. 


THE  POSITION  OF  JAMES  71 

From  the  Resurrection  onwards,  as  we  know  from  the 
combined  testimony  of  the  Acts  and  St.  Paul,  the  brethren 
of  the  Lord  occupied  a  place  of  honour  and  distinction  in 
the  Christian  Church.  Among  them  St.  James  is  most 
prominent.  From  the  time  of  the  persecution  of  Herod 
he  seems  to  preside  over  the  Church  at  Jerusalem.  St. 
Paul,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  mentions  James  before 
Cephas  and  John,  while  later  tradition  remembers  and 
exaggerates  his  position.  According  to  Hegesippus,  “  James, 
the  brother  of  the  Lord,  succeeded  to  the  government  of 
the  Church  in  conjunction  with  the  Apostles.”1  According 
to  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  later  writers  he  was  Bishop 
of  Jerusalem.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  early 
days  of  Christianity  the  character  and  influence  of  James 
were  of  great  importance.  He  was  a  stout  adherent  of  the 
law;  he  was  ascetic  in  his  life;  and  these  two  facts  made 
him  popular  with  the  mass  of  the  people.  It  was  not  until 
the  breaking  up  of  all  law  and  order  that  the  extreme  party 
were  strong  enough  to  vent  their  hatred  upon  him.  But 
on  the  other  hand  he  was  a  Christian,  a  Christian  who 
always  took  the  side  of  freedom  and  expansion.  He  gave 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  St.  Paul,  and  he  attempted 
to  conciliate  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem  to  him  by  suggesting  a 
scheme  which  might  shew  his  personal  loyalty  to  Jewish 
customs.  Head  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem,  regarded  with 
respect  by  the  most  prejudiced  Jewish  Christians  and  by 
many  Jews,  he  used  his  powerful  influence  to  keep  the 
Church  together,  and  helped  to  prevent  any  such  division 
in  its  early  days  as  might  have  been  fatal  to  its  existence. 

But  it  is  more  difficult  to  obtain  an  accurate  idea  of 
his  constitutional  position.  Perhaps  in  its  origin  it  was  a 
special  appointment  arising  from  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
Lord’s  brother.  Renan  compares  the  position  of  the  family 
of  Mahomet  in  the  early  Caliphate,  and  the  analogy  is  not 
incorrect.  It  has  been  suggested  that  he  was  made  one 
of  the  Twelve  when  James  the  brother  of  John  was  killed. 
It  is  perhaps  the  case  that  he  attained  his  position  owing 
to  the  persecution  of  Herod,  which  made  Jerusalem  too 
dangerous  a  place  for  the  Apostles.  There  are,  however, 

1  Hegesippus  ap.  Euseb.  H.  E.  ii.  23. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


72 

elements  in  the  later  traditions  which  may  help  in  a  more 
accurate  solution  of  the  problem.  Tradition  seems  to  speak 
of  St.  James  as  a  Jewish  high  priest.  Polycrates  of 
Ephesus  speaks  of  St.  John  as  a  “  priest  who  wore  the 
mitre.”1  Do  not  these  traditions  suggest  that  there  was 
a  tendency  among  some  Christians  to  look  upon  the  high 
priest  and  the  Sanhedrin  as  the  proper  models  to  follow  ? 
We  have  seen  that  when  the  Christians  were  expelled  from 
the  synagogues  they  did  what  was  quite  natural,  they 
founded  communities  of  their  own  on  the  analogy  of  those 
that  they  had  left.  So  when  they  were  cut  off  from  the 
fellowship  of  Israel  after  the  flesh,  they  would  naturally 
model  their  society  as  a  whole  on  the  analogy  of  the  Jewish 
nation.  If  this  be  so,  the  Apostles  and  presbyters  at  Jeru¬ 
salem  would  be  looked  upon,  not  perhaps  by  all  Christians 
but  by  some,  as  the  Sanhedrin  of  the  Christians.  James 
was  in  the  position  of  a  Christian  high  priest.  Traces  of 
this  conception  were  preserved  in  Christian  tradition.  That 
St.  John  wore  the  mitre,  that  St.  James  entered  the  Holy 
Place,  may  be  dismissed  as  legendary  embellishments;  but 
the  fact  that  probably  underlies  them  is  that  Jewish  Chris¬ 
tians  loved  to  think  of  the  Apostles  as  the  actual  inheritors 
of  the  position  of  the  high  priest  and  elders  at  Jerusalem, 
that  a  Christian  Judaism  had  been  their  ideal,  that  they 
had  seen  in  the  Council  of  the  Apostles  and  presbyters  at 
Jerusalem  a  Christian  Sanhedrin.2 

It  was  natural  that  so  long  as  Jerusalem  was  standing 
it  should  be  the  local  centre  of  the  new  religion.  "  Jeru¬ 
salem  is  the  mother  of  us  all  ”  was  the  cry  of  the  Galatian 
Judaizers.  To  Jerusalem  the  thoughts  of  Christians  were 
directed,  and  to  Jerusalem  questions  were  naturally  referred. 
In  this  way  rose  the  first  Christian  Council  at  which  the 

1  Cf.  Euseb.  H.  E.  v.  24. 

2  The  above  view  was  put  forward  in  the  article  of  the  Church 
Quarterly  Review  referred  to  above,  and  it  is  interesting  to  see  that 
Professor  Harnack  seems  to  have  arrived  at  a  similar  conclusion. 

“  The  new  constitution  in  Jerusalem  with  James  at  the  head  and 
presbyters — possibly  twelve — must  be  understood  in  such  a  way 
that  James  corresponds  to  the  high  priest  and  the  presbyters  to 
the  Sanhedrin.”  The  Constitution  and  Law  of  the  Church  in  the 
First  Tivo  Centuries.  By  Adolf  Harnack,  translated  by  F.  L. 
Pogson,  M.A.,  edited  by  H.  D.  A.  Major,  M.A.,  p.  34. 


THE  CHURCH  AT  JERUSALEM  73 

Apostles  and  presbyters  had  to  decide  on  the  great  question 
of  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles.  But  it  was  soon  clear 
that  the  new  religion  had  in  it  elements  of  life  and  power 
which  would  break  through  these  barriers.  The  work  was 
done  for  it  by  quite  external  forces.  St.  Paul  must  have 
chafed  under  the  influence  of  the  narrow  party  at  Jerusalem 
which  had  to  be  conciliated,  but  he  had  in  a  full  measure 
the  statesmanship  which  told  him  that  at  any  sacrifice 
but  that  of  principle  the  unity  of  the  Church  must  be 
preserved.  Even  in  his  lifetime  the  growth  of  the  Apostolic 
churches  had  made  the  influence  of  Jerusalem  less  and  less 
important,  and  the  destruction  of  the  city  swept  away  all 
the  old  conditions. 

The  constitution  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  thus  was 
something  abnormal,  something  which  in  its  origin  belonged 
to  a  temporary  stage  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  The 
Seven  were  appointed  to  meet  an  emergency.  The 
presbyters  with  the  Apostles  were  modelled  on  the  Jewish 
Sanhedrin.  James  was  a  Christian  high  priest,  and  owed 
his  unique  position  to  his  relationship  to  the  Founder 
of  Christianity.  None  of  these  conditions  could  be  repeated. 
But  at  the  same  time  the  organization  of  the  Church  at 
Jerusalem  suggests  an  exact  resemblance  to  that  in  later 
days  of  bishop,  presbyter,  and  deacon;  and  it  is  not  im¬ 
probable  that  that  model  assisted  in  the  building  up  of  the 
later  organization  of  the  Church. 

VI 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Christian  society  shaped  for  itself 
the  organization  necessary  for  the  world-wide  mission  that 
it  had  to  fulfil.  Let  us  ask  what  were  the  ideas  and  con¬ 
ceptions  that  lay  behind  this  development. 

How  did  the  early  Christians  think  of  the  Church  ?  Our 
starting-point  must  be  the  conception  that  Jesus  was  the 
Messiah  and  all  that  that  implied.  Under  Him,  therefore, 
Israel  attained  its  purpose.  In  Him  a  new  covenant  between 
God  and  man  was  inaugurated.  The  old  order  passed  away. 
The  new  Israel  was  created.  The  Israel  of  old  days,  the 
Israel  after  the  flesh,  the  natural  Israel,  had  been  the  con- 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


74 

gregation  or  ecclesia  of  the  elect.  Those  who  were  members 
of  it  had  been  redeemed,  and  for  them  as  members  of  the 
holy  nation  salvation  was  prepared.  In  the  opinion  of  the 
followers  of  Jesus  the  Messiah  this  place  was  now  taken 
by  His  disciples,  the  new  community  which  He  had  formed. 
This  thought  pervades  the  Apostolic  literature.1  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  the  Israel  of  God.  In  place  of  the  old  distinction 
of  circumcision  and  uncircumcision  there  is  a  new  creation 
which  includes  both.2  The  true  Israel  is  not  the  nation 
thus  called.  Many  who  belonged  to  that  nation  had  no 
right  to  a  place  in  the  spiritual  Israel.3  This  conception 
is  brought  out  by  the  symbol  of  the  olive-tree.  The  stock 
is  undying.  Some  branches  which  did  not  bear  fruit  have 
been*cut  off:  these  are  the  unbelieving  Jews.  Branches 
of  the  wild  olive  have  been  grafted  in:  these  are  the 
believing  Gentiles.  But  the  life  is  continuous.4  So  all  the 
terms  describing  the  spiritual  prerogatives  of  the  old  Israel 
may  be  applied  to  the  new.  They  are  an  elect  race,  a  royal 
priesthood,  a  holy  nation,  a  people  for  God’s  own  possession, 
the  people  of  God.6  So  deeply  ingrained  is  this  belief  that 
the  Christian  society  is  the  true  representative  of  the  old 
Israel  that  St.  Peter,  writing  to  Gentiles  as  well  as  Jews, 
addresses  his  letter  “  to  the  elect  who  are  sojourners  of 
the  dispersion”;6  and  St.  James,  also  writing  to  Gentiles, 
speaks  of  them  as  “  the  twelve  tribes  which  are  in  the 
dispersion.”7 

Now  this  society,  a  society  new  and  yet  old,  is  normally 

1  The  importance  of  this  conception  of  the  new  Israel  seems  first 
to  have  been  suggested  by  Hort  ( Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  io).  “If 
we  may  venture  for  a  moment  to  substitute  the  name  Israel,  and 
read  the  words  as  ‘  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Israel/  we  gain  an 
impression  which  supplies  at  least  an  approximation  to  the  probable 
sense.  The  Ecclesia  of  the  ancient  Israel  was  the  Ecclesia  of  God: 
and  now  having  been  confessed  to  be  God’s  Messiah,  nay,  His  Son, 
He  could  to  such  hearers  without  risk  of  grave  misunderstanding 
claim  that  Ecclesia  as  His  own.”  The  idea  is  made  full  use  of  by 
Harnack,  The  Constitution  and  Law  of  the  Church.  But  the  ablest 
and  most  complete  exposition  is  by  Hamilton,  The  People  of  God, 
vol.  ii.,  chap,  ii.,  “  The  New  Israel.” 

2  Gal.  vi.  15,  16. 

3  Rom.  ix.  7,  “  They  are  not  all  Israel,  which  are  of  Israel.” 

4  Rom.  xi.  17-24. 

6  1  St.  Peter  ii.  5,  9,  10.  See  p.  13. 

6  I  St.  Peter  i.  I,  2,  ticXe/CTOig  rrapEiri^ynoig  Ciaairopag. 

7  St.  James  i.  I,  raig  diodeica  <pvXaig  ralg  iv  ry  Sia<j7rop$. 


THE  ONE  CHURCH 


75 

spoken  of  as  the  Ecclesia  or  “  Church  ”  of  God.  The 
word,  which,  we  have  seen,  was  derived  from  the  Old 
Testament,  and  probably  used  by  our  Lord,  was  applied 
first  to  the  primitive  community  at  Jerusalem.  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  the  time  when  he  persecuted  “  the  Church  of 
God,”1  and  this  term  signified  the  whole  society  as  it 
gradually  grew  which  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  definite 
division  of  the  human  race :  "  Give  no  occasion  for  stumbling 
either  to  Jews,  or  to  Greeks,  or  to  the  Church  of  God.”2 

It  lay  in  the  nature  of  things  that  this  society  was  abso¬ 
lutely  unique.  There  was  only  one  Church,  and  there  could 
be  no  more.  Just  as  there  was  only  one  nation  of  Israel, 
so  there  could  be  only  one  spiritual  Israel.  This  unique¬ 
ness  was  a  necessary  deduction  from  the  unity  of  the  God¬ 
head  and  the  one  method  of  salvation:  <f  There  is  one  body, 
and  one  Spirit,  even  as  also  ye  are  called  in  one  hope  of 
your  calling;  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God 
and  Father  of  all,  who  is  over  all,  and  through  all,  and  in 
all.”3  And  as  it  is  one,  so  it  is  intended  for  all  the  nations 
of  the  world :  that  is,  it  was — using  a  term  which  somewhat 
later  became  prominent' — "  catholic.”  It  was  to  be  formed 
from  all  classes  without  distinction.  In  it  “  there  is  neither 
Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  or  uncircumcision,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bondman,  freedman:  Christ  is  all  in  all.”4  This 
universality  is  involved  in  the  very  essence  of  the  New 
Covenant,  the  salvation  wrought  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  old 
Israel  was  confined  to  one  nation,  the  new  Israel  was  for 
the  world.  “  In  Christ  Jesus  those  who  were  far  off  are 
made  nigh.”  He  is  our  peace.  He  has  broken  down  that 
wall  of  partition  in  the  temple  which  separated  Jew  and 
Gentile.  He  has  made  two  one.  He  has  preached  peace 
to  him  that  was  far  off  and  to  him  that  was  nigh,  that  both 
alike  might  have  access  to  one  Father.6 

As  the  Church  was  thus  unique,  as  there  was  one  and  could 
not  be  a  second,  so  there  could  be  no  division  or  disunion 
in  it.  We  shall  not  have  a  right  idea  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  unless  we  realize  the  necessity  of  its  remaining  one. 
If,  for  example,  we  study  St.  Paul’s  conduct  of  the  con- 

1  I  Cor.  XV.  9;  Gal.  i.  13;  Phil.  iii.  6,  eSuoicov  rf)v  EKic\ii<jia> >  tov  0eov. 

2  i  Cor.  x.  32.  3  Eph.  iv.  4,  5.  4  Col.  iii.  11.  5  Eph.  ii.  11-22. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


70 

troversy  concerning  the  obligations  of  the  Jewish  law,  we 
shall  find  that  what  complicated  the  problem  with  him 
was  the  paramount  necessity  of  preserving  the  unity  of 
the  Christian  Church.  It  is  the  instinct  of  a  real  statesman 
to  know  that  the  problem  before  him  has  always  more  than 
one  element  which  is  essential.  It  was  not  enough  for  him 
to  assert  the  freedom  of  the  Gentile  Christian.  He  must 
obtain  recognition  for  it.  Unless  his  work  was  recognized, 
unless  he  kept  in  union  with  those  who  were  in  Christ 
before  him — that  is,  with  the  Church  at  Jerusalem — “  he 
would  have  run  in  vain.”1  This  unity  and  solidarity  of 
the  whole  Christian  society  is  the  fundamental  assumption 
of  the  Apostolic  history.  The  Church  could  only  be  one, 
and  it  must  not  be  divided.  “  Neither  for  these  only  do 
I  pray,  but  for  them  also  that  believe  on  me  through  their 
word;  that  they  may  all  be  one;  even  as  thou,  Father,  art  in 
me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us.”2 

The  characteristics  of  this  society  are  presented  to  us 
in  a  series  of  metaphors,  of  which  the  commonest  is  that 
of  the  body.  This  conception  of  the  “  body  ”  puts  before 
us  two  leading  ideas.  The  one  is  that  the  Church  is  an 
organism.  It  has  differentiation  of  parts  and  an  organic 
life.  It,  like  the  body,  consists  of  many  parts,  and  each 
of  them  has  its  own  function  to  perform.  “  The  body 
is  one  and  has  many  members.”  The  well-being  of  the 
whole  depends  upon  each  member  fulfilling  its  proper 
function,  and  caring  not  for  its  own  interests  but  for  those  of 
the  society.3  But  this  metaphor  of  the  body  brings  out  also 
another  characteristic  of  the  Church.  While  the  Church 
is  the  body,  its  head  is  Christ.4  All  its  life  and  vitality 
and  spiritual  power  come  to  it  from  Christ.  The  life  of 
the  individual  members  depends  upon  their  life  in  Christ. 
From  Him  as  from  their  source  flow  forth  spiritual  blessings 
on  all  Christians  who  are  thus  joined  with  Him  in  a  spiritual 
unity. 

And  as  the  Church  is  described  as  a  body,  so  it  is  also 
spoken  of  as  a  building.  It  is  built  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  Apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  Himself  being 

1  Gal.  ii.  1-3.  2  St.  John  xvii.  20,  21. 

8  x  Cor.  xii.  12-27.  4  Eph.  i*  22,  23. 


THE  WORD  "CHURCH  ” 


77 

the  chief  corner-stone.1  This  metaphor  of  the  build¬ 
ing  seems  to  have  impressed  the  imagination  of  the 
Church,  and  it  often  recurs  in  early  Christian  literature.2 
It,  too,  conveyed  the  idea  of  well-ordered,  well-designed 
structure.  The  whole  building  presented  a  plan,  and  each 
stone  was  fitted  for  its  place.  And  this  metaphor  also 
taught  the  spiritual  significance  of  a  society.  It  forms  a 
“  holy  temple  in  the  Lord,”  “  a  habitation  of  God  in  the 
Spirit.”3 

Such  was  the  Church  of  God.  But  as  the  Church  was 
scattered  over  the  whole  world,  it  was  necessarily  formed 
of  many  smaller  societies,  the  believers  who  resided  in  any 
particular  place.  This  local  society  also  bore  the  name 
of  Church.  Sometimes  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  Church  of 
Thessalonica,  or,  again,  as  the  Church  of  God  which  is  in 
Corinth,  or  as  the  Church  which  sojourneth  at  Philippi. 
Sometimes  the  word  church  is  omitted  in  Apostolic  addresses 
and  letters  are  addressed  to  the  saints  which  are  at  Ephesus. 
This  local  community  is  looked  upon  as  an  undivided  part 
of  the  whole  society.  It  represented  in  itself  all  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  whole.  It,  too,  had  its  organic  life.  Its  members 
had  their  duties  and  functions.  Much  of  the  language 
used,  for  example,  by  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  may  be 
applied  equally  well  to  the  whole  society  as  to  the  par¬ 
ticular  representative  of  it  in  that  place.  As  it  receives  its 
life  from  the  whole,  so  it  must  conform  in  its  character 
to  the  ideals  of  the  whole.  "  What  ?  was  it  from  you  that 
the  word  of  God  went  forth  ?  or  came  it  unto  you  only  ?” 
“  We  have  no  such  custom,  neither  the  churches  of  God.”4 

There  are,  thus,  the  following  usages  of  the  word  ecclesia. 
There  is,  first  of  all,  the  Ecclesia  or  Church  of  God,  the 
Christian  society,  the  organ  of  redemption.  Then  there  is 
the  local  ecclesia  or  church.  Then  comes  the  usage  of 
the  “  churches,”  the  one  society  looked  upon  as  composed 
of  a  multitude  of  local  societies  scattered  through  the  world. 
Lastly,  we  have  the  word  ecclesia  used  of  the  actual  assembly 
of  Christians  for  worship.5 

1  Eph.  ii.  20.  2  Hennas,  Similitudes  g. 

3  i  Cor.  iii.  16,  17.  4  1  Cor.  xi.  16,  xiv.  36. 

5  On  the  uses  of  the  word  ecclesia  see  Dissertation  A. 


78 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


About  these  expressions  there  are  two  errors  to  be 
avoided.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  expression  the 
“  churches  ”  might  be  used  in  the  same  manner  as  has 
become  customary  in  certain  modern  circles,  for  a  number 
of  different  societies  in  each  place  separate  from  one  another, 
just  as  there  are  what  are  called  Anglican,  Romanist, 
Wesleyan,  Congregational  churches  in  one  city.  It  is 
difficult  to  conceive  of  anything  more  fundamentally  alien 
to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  than  this.  As 
there  could  only  be  one  Church  of  God  in  the  world,  so  there 
could  only  be  one  Church  of  God  in  Corinth,  although  it 
might,  and  probably  did,  consist  of  many  congregations. 
In  fact,  a  considerable  part  of  St.  Paul’s  first  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  is  devoted  to  preventing  such  a  state  of 
things  arising  as  the  modern  religious  world  presents,  and 
the  reason  why  the  regulations  as  regards  food  were  im¬ 
posed  upon  the  Gentile  Christians  was  to  enable  Jews  and 
Gentiles  to  meet  in  the  one  Christian  rite,  the  Agape  or 
Eucharist.  No  justification  can  be  found  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  for  our  modern  divisions. 

Again,  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  local  community 
had  existed  prior  to  the  general  society — that  it  was  only 
by  contemplating  the  local  church  that  St.  Paul  arrived 
at  the  conception  of  the  Universal  Church,  and  that  that 
Universal  or  Catholic  Church  should  be  looked  on  as  in 
reality  a  federation  of  independent  units.  This  point  of 
view  has  been  put  forward  in  the  interests  of  Congrega¬ 
tionalism. 

This,  again,  is  a  conception  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Apostolic  age.  In  the  first  place,  the  universal  Ecclesia  is 
not  formed  out  of  churches,  but  out  of  individual  Christians. 
A  person  was  not  made  by  Baptism  a  member  of  the  local 
church,  but  of  the  Church  of  God.1  This  becomes  more 
apparent  if  we  consider  the  analogy  to  the  Old  Israel.  A 
man  was  an  Israelite  because  he  belonged  to  the  Israelite 
nation,  not  because  he  belonged  to  the  local  Jewish  com¬ 
munity  at  Antioch  or  Alexandria.  The  local  body  was 
formed  of  those  who  were  Israelites,  and  their  loyalty  was 

1  Hort,  Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  168:  ‘‘The  members  which  make 
up  the  One  Ecclesia  are  not  communities  but  individual  men." 


BAPTISM 


79 

to  Israel  as  the  whole,  and  not  to  the  local  synagogue. 
So  in  the  New  Israel,  the  thought  of  unity  comes  first.1 
The  local  church  is  derived  from,  and  dependent  on,  the 
universal  Church.  The  theological  idea  is  earlier  than  its 
practical  manifestation.  And  the  usage  of  the  word  cor¬ 
responds  to  this  conception.  It  originally  meant  the  whole 
congregation  of  Israel ;  and  so  we  find  it  used  of  the  Church 
as  a  whole  prior  to  its  use  for  the  local  church. 

Such,  then,  the  Christian  society  was  conceived  to  be 
— a  society  intended  to  embrace  the  whole  world,  the 
temple  of  God,  the  body  of  Christ,  the  home  of  the  work 
of  the  Spirit,  the  source  of  all  spiritual  blessings  to  those 
who  became  members  of  it.  It  stretched  throughout  the 
world,  but  in  each  place  it  was  represented  by  the  local 
church,  the  society  of  all  believers  within  that  area,  the 
representatives  of  the  Church  of  God  sojourning  in  the 
world. 

VII 

There  were  three  principal  rites  or  ordinances  in  the 
Apostolic  Church.  Two,  Baptism  and  the  Breaking  of 
Bread,  had  been  present  from  the  beginning;  a  third,  the 
laying  on  of  hands,  was  perhaps  of  later  origin.  It  cannot 
be  referred  to  any  custom  or  command  of  Christ.  All 
these  had  a  close  relation  to  the  unity  of  the  society. 

Baptism  was  the  rite  of  entrance.  The  two  requisites 
to  become  a  Christian  were  to  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  to  be  baptized.  This  appears  to  have  been  the 
universal  rule  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  as  it  has  been  ever 
since  of  Christianity.  Baptism  meant  to  be  incorporated 
in  Christ.  It  was  the  inevitable  and  necessary  accompani¬ 
ment  of  the  faith  by  which  a  man  accepted  Christ;  it  was 
the  work  of  the  Spirit;  it  was  intimately  connected  with  the 
unity  of  the  society  as  the  home  of  the  Spirit :  "  In  one 
Spirit  were  we  all  baptized  into  one  body.”2 

There  are  certain  questions  which,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  modern  controversy,  we  might  desire  to  ask.  Who 

1  Harnack,  Constitution  and  Law,  p.  50:  “  Development  proceeds 
in  the  first  place  from  the  whole  to  the  part.” 

2  1  Cor.  xii.  13. 


8o 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


was  it  who  baptized  ?  To  this  question  we  can  give  no 
answer.  The  one  thing  we  know  is  that  St.  Paul  did  not 
usually  baptize  himself.  For  Christ  sent  him  not  to  baptize 
but  to  preach  the  Gospel.1  We  know,  also,  that  Ananias, 
who  baptized  him,  is  described  simply  as  a  disciple.  It  is 
also  specially  recorded  of  our  Lord  that  He  did  not  Himself 
baptize.  The  only  deduction  we  can  make  is  that,  as 
Baptism  was  looked  upon  as  necessary  and  imperative,  it 
was  competent  for  any  baptized  Christian  himself  to  baptize. 
This  would  not  prevent  the  Church  making  quite  early  the 
regulations  necessary  for  its  orderly  administration,  and 
no  doubt  it  would  normally  celebrate  the  rite  through  the 
regular  ministry. 

The  second  rite  was  the  Breaking  of  Bread.  It  is  once 
called  the  Lord’s  Supper;  it  came  very  soon  to  be  called 
the  Eucharist,  and  there  are  some  indications  that  this 
name  may  have  been  already  in  use.2  We  have  sufficient 
evidence  to  shew  that  it  was  the  normal  and  habitual  rite 
of  the  Church,  and  that  it  had  the  most  sacred  signification. 
It  was  the  communion  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
It  was  the  proclaiming  of  the  Lord’s  death.  Whoever  should 
eat  the  bread  and  drink  the  cup  of  the  Lord  unworthily 
would  be  guilty  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  So  awful 
was  the  rite  that  sickness  and  death,  the  judgement  of  God, 
had  come  on  those  who  had  profaned  it.  It,  too,  was 
intimately  connected  with  the  unity  of  the  Church  which 
was  the  body  of  Christ.  “We  who  are  many  are  one  bread, 
one  body.  For  we  all  partake  of  one  bread.”3 

But,  again,  there  are  many  questions  which  modern  times 
would  like  to  ask  and  to  which  no  answer  is  given.  Who 
presided  at  the  Eucharist  ?  Who  blessed  the  bread  and 
wine  ?  On  one  occasion  it  was  St.  Paul,  and  we  may 
reasonably  conjecture  that  when  an  Apostle  was  present 
it  was  his  function.  Otherwise  we  have  no  information. 
After  the  close  of  the  Apostolic  period  we  learn  from  the 

1  i  Cor.  i.  14-17. 

8  1  Cor.  xiv.  16,  "  Else  if  thou  bless  with  the  spirit,  how  shall  he 
that  filleth  the  place  of  the  unlearned  say  the  Amen  at  thy  giving 
of  thanks  ?”  (s7ri  ry  <ry  evxapujr'nf) .  This  might  well  mean  the 
Eucharistic  prayer. 

3  1  Cor.  x.  17. 


LAYING  ON  OF  HANDS 


8x 


Didache  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  prophets  or,  in  their 
absence,  of  the  local  ministry;1  we  learn  from  Clement  of 
Rome  that  it  was  the  bishops  or  presbyters  of  the  Church 
who  offered  the  gifts.2  The  reasonable  deduction  from  this 
evidence  would  be  that  in  Apostolic  times  also  the  minister 
of  the  Eucharist  would  be  the  Apostle  or  prophet  when  he 
was  present,  and  if  not  the  local  ministry.  But  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  emphasize  that  this  is  a  matter  of  inference  from 
later  times,  and  that  we  have  no  evidence.  Nothing  is 
ever  said  which  would  justify  us  in  thinking  that  if  a  body 
of  Christians  were  present  with  no  duly  appointed  minister 
they  would  abstain  from  the  Breaking  of  Bread.  No  direc¬ 
tions  are  given  us,  and  therefore  the  only  deduction  that 
we  can  make  is  that  no  principle  would  be  involved  in  the 
matter.  The  blessing  would  be  the  blessing  of  the  Church, 
and  therefore  the  Church  might  order  the  blessing  as  it 
has  done  in  its  own  way,  and  by  those  ministers  that  it 
appointed. 

The  third  rite  was  that  of  the  laying  on  of  hands.  We 
learn  from  a  passage  in  the  Hebrews  that  laying  on  of 
hands  was  a  normal  and  fundamental  rite  of  the  Church, 
capable  of  being  coupled  with  such  doctrines  as  faith, 
repentance,  judgement,  and  eternal  life.3  We  also  find 
constant  reference  to  it  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  At  a 
later  date  we  find  laying  on  of  hands  the  rite  used  by  the 
Church  in  what  we  call  Confirmation,  in  the  Restoration  of 
the  Penitent,  and  in  Ordination.  Each  of  these  ordinances 
demands  some  attention.  What  relation  did  Apostolic 
custom  bear  to  the  usage  of  the  later  Church  ? 

A  typical  instance  of  laying  on  of  hands  is  given  us  in 
the  account  of  the  conversion  of  Samaria.  The  Apostles 
send  down  Peter  and  John  to  visit  the  new  converts.  For 
they  had  not  received  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  had  been  only 
baptized  in  “  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Then  laid  they 
their  hands  on  them  and  they  received  the  Holy  Ghost.” 
Further,  we  are  told  that  Simon  Magus,  seeing  that  the 

1  See  the  passage  quoted  above,  p.  63. 

2  Tovg  afikfnrTOiQ  Kai  ocriiog  TrpocreveyKovrag  ra  £u>pa  rrjg  liruyKOirrig,  Clem. 
Rom.  xliv.  4. 

3  Heb.  vi.  1,  2. 


6 


82 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


Apostles  had  power  so  that  through  them  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  given,  wished  to  purchase  for  himself  this  power.1 

Now  this  seems  to  suggest  (and  other  passages  corroborate 
it)  that  normally  the  laying  on  of  hands  followed  Baptism ; 
that  thus  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  came;  and  that  the 
proper  persons  to  perform  the  ceremony  were  the  Apostles. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  another  incident.  When  Peter  was 
speaking  to  Cornelius  and  his  friends,  the  Holy  Spirit  fell 
on  those  who  heard  him.  “  They  of  the  circumcision  also 
which  believed  were  amazed  because  on  the  Gentiles  also 
was  poured  out  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.”  They  were 
then  baptized.2  Now  I  think  that  these  two  incidents 
compared  with  one  another  are  of  considerable  significance. 
The  one  gives  the  normal  custom,  the  other  an  abnormal 
incident.  And  this  shews  the  right  estimate  we  must  form 
of  both.  The  abnormal  incident  does  not  take  away  from 
the  authority  or  value  of  the  regular  custom  of  the  Church, 
but  it  reminds  us  that  God’s  Spirit  is  not  limited  or  bound 
by  any  ordinances,  that  sacraments  exist  for  our  edification, 
and  do  nothing  to  limit  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit  and  the 
power  of  God. 

At  a  later  date  laying  on  of  hands  was  the  ordinary  rite 
for  the  restoration  of  a  penitent,  and  Dr.  Hort  has  suggested 
that  when  Timothy  was  bidden  to  lay  hands  suddenly  on 
no  man  it  is  to  this  that  it  refers.3  This  must  remain  un¬ 
certain;  but  it  is  important  to  notice  that  we  have  instances 
both  of  the  infliction  of  discipline  and  of  the  restoration  of 
the  penitent.  The  punishment  was  inflicted  by  the  com¬ 
munity  under  the  advice  of  St.  Paul,  and  as  if  he  were 
present  himself.  The  Church  of  Corinth  was  to  assemble 
together  “  in  the  name  and  power  of  the  Lord  Jesus.” 
With  St.  Paul’s  spirit  present  with  them  they  were  solemnly 
to  deliver  the  offender  over  to  Satan  “  for  the  destruction 
of  the  flesh,  that  the  spirit  may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.”  In  the  case  of  the  penitent  who  is  to  be 
restored,  it  is  said,  "  sufficient  to  such  a  one  is  this  punish¬ 
ment  which  was  inflicted  by  the  many.”  As  he  had  sorrow 
he  was  to  be  forgiven.  They  are  to  confirm  their  love  fop 

1  Acts  viii.  14-24.  2  Acts  x.  44-48. 

3  I  Tim.  v.  22,  Hort,  Christian  EQclesia,  pp.  214,  215. 


ORDINATION 


83 

him.  They  had  shewn  their  obedience  in  inflicting  punish¬ 
ment,  and  now  they  may  rightly  exercise  the  power  of 
forgiveness.  In  both  cases  the  community  acts,  and  in 
both  cases  under  the  authority  of  the  Apostle.1 

The  third  usage  in  later  days  was  the  laying  on  of  hands 
in  Ordination.  This  custom,  too,  had  its  origin  in  Apostolic 
times.  We  have  already  analyzed  the  first  recorded  in¬ 
stance,  that  of  the  Seven,  and  have  pointed  out  that  here 
we  have  all  the  essential  elements  of  an  ecclesiastical  ordina¬ 
tion.  We  may  reasonably  assume  that  a  similar  procedure 
would  be  followed  in  other  appointments.  We  are  com¬ 
pelled,  in  fact,  to  think  so,  for  the  universal  prevalence  in 
later  times  implies  the  continuity  of  the  custom. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  what  we  can  learn  about  the  appoint¬ 
ment  and  ordination  of  the  ministry  in  Apostolic  times. 
The  method  is  described  as  the  laying  on  of  hands  with 
prayer  or  prophecy.  The  meaning  of  the  rite  is  given  us 
by  the  prayer  or  prophecy  with  which  it  was  associated. 
Prayer  was  offered  up  for  all  the  spiritual  blessings  necessary 
for  the  work  to  which  an  appointment  was  being  made, 
and  the  laying  on  of  hands  symbolized  the  gift  that  came 
from  above.  The  curiosity  of  a  more  reflective  age  seeks 
to  define  more  accurately  the  nature  of  the  gift,  and  to 
inquire  what  is  the  exact  significance  of  laying  on  of  hands. 
Would  the  gift  be  given  without  the  external  rite  ?  Such 
reflection  was  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  day.  Christian 
thought  did  not  ask  whether  it  was  by  faith  or  the  water 
of  Baptism  that  a  man  was  saved,  but  said,  “  Believe  and 
be  baptized.”  It  did  not  discriminate  between  the  prayer 
and  the  rite,  but  laid  on  hands  with  prayer.  It  did  not 
argue  that  because  a  man  was  called  by  the  Spirit  to  the 
work  for  which  he  was  appointed  there  was  no  need  for 
ordination,  but  it  considered  that  he  should  be  ordained 
because  he  was  fitted,  and  the  Church  prayed  that  he  might 
receive  the  necessary  gifts.  Such  gifts  must  be  continually 
renewed.  “  Neglect  not  the  gift  which  is  in  thee  which 
was  given  thee  by  prophecy.”  “  Stir  up  the  gift  which 

1  1  Cor.  v.  1-5;  2  Cor.  ii.  5-1 1.  It  makes  no  difference  as  regards 
our  argument  whether  the  two  passages  refer  to  the  same  or  to 
different  incidents.  The  former  is  more  probable. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


84 

was  in  thee  by  the  laying  on  of  my  hands.”  The  religious 
life  of  the  early  Church  was  in  fact  naturally  and  spon¬ 
taneously  sacramental,  for  it  was  a  life  in  the  Spirit.1 

Who  were  ordained  ?  There  are  three  definite  instances 
given  us — that  of  the  Seven,  of  Barnabas  and  Saul  when 
they  are  sent  forth  as  Apostles  of  the  Church,  and  that  of 
Timothy,  who  might  be  called  Apostle  or  evangelist.. 
Clearly  we  can  make  no  such  distinction  as  that  which  has 
been  made  between  charismatic  and  other  ministries.  But, 
further,  we  learn  how  St.  Paul  appointed  presbyters  in  the 
churches  that  he  founded,  and  Titus  is  bidden  appoint 
them  in  Crete.2  We  are  not  told  that  this  appointment 
was  made  by  laying  on  of  hands,  but  all  analogy  would 
point  to  that.  The  only  class  of  ministers  concerning 
whose  appointment  or  ordination  there  is  no  evidence  are 
the  prophets.  It  has,  therefore,  been  assumed  that  as  they 
exhibited  so  clearly  the  spiritual  gifts  that  they  had  received 
no  such  recognition  was  necessary.  It  may  be  so.  We 
have  no  evidence  and  can  only  conjecture.  But  it  would 
seem  somewhat  inconsistent  with  the  conception  of  orderli¬ 
ness  that  prevailed  in  the  Church,  nor  would  it  explain 
the  distinction  between  the  prophet  and  false  prophet. 
It  is  more  probable  that  the  Church  shewed  its  authority 
by  the  appointment  of  prophets  as  of  other  orders  of 
ministry.3 

1  So  Harnack,  Constitution  and  Law,  p.  26:  “  Appointment  to 
the  service  of  the  community  was  made  by  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
after  previous  prayer  and  fasting  (Acts  vi.  6,  xiii.  3;  1  Tim.  iv.  14; 

2  Tim.  i.  6;  1  Tim.  v.  22).  It  is  unnecessary  to  ask  how  this  form 
came  to  be  adopted,  since  it  is  a  question  of  the  continuation  of 
a  Jewish  rite.  That  the  laying  on  of  hands  was  regarded  as  con¬ 
ferring  the  charisma  necessary  to  the  office  is  obvious  from  the 
passages  in  Timothy,  and  it  is  improbable  that  these  express  only 
a  later  idea.  The  laying  on  of  hands  was  then  certainly  ‘  sacra¬ 
mental/  but  what  old  or  newly  created  rites  were  not  sacramental 
in  a  community  which  had  the  Holy  Spirit  giving  practical  proof 
of  His  presence  in  its  midst  ?” 

2  Titus  i.  5,  Ka.TaoTi]oyQ  Kara  ttoXlv  7r ptafivTspovg.  The  word  KaOiaryfit, 
KctreffTijcra  appears  to  have  been  almost  technical;  cf.  Acts  vi.  3. 

3  Harnack,  Constitution  and  Law,  p.  24 :  “  They  are  all  charismatics 
— i.e.,  their  calling  rests  on  a  gift  of  the  Spirit  which  is  a  permanent 
possession  for  them,  and  this  applies  ideally  to  the  whole  Church. 
But  their  charismatic  character  does  not  prevent  their  mandate 
from  being  recognized  or  in  certain  cases  put  to  the  test  by  the 
community.” 


CHURCH  ORDER 


85 

Who  ordained  ?  The  Seven  were  ordained  by  the  Apostles. 
When  Barnabas  and  Saul  were  sent  out  by  the  Church  of 
Antioch  they  were  separated  for  the  work — if  we  interpret 
the  passage  in  the  most  natural  way — by  the  prophets  and 
teachers;  but  it  might  be  the  action  of  the  Church  as  a 
whole.1  Of  Timothy  we  are  told  in  the  one  place  that  it 
was  the  presbytery,  in  another  St.  Paul,  that  laid  hands 
on  him.2  The  natural  interpretation  would  be  that  it  was 
St.  Paul  with  the  presbytery,  and  the  analogy  of  a  bishop 
and  presbyters  ordaining  naturally  presents  itself.  These 
are  the  only  certain  instances  of  ordination.  But  we  have 
seen  how  the  presbyters  were  regularly  appointed  in  Galatia 
by  St.  Paul,  in  Crete  by  Titus,  and  almost  certainly  in 
every  church  by  those  who  founded  and  organized  it. 

A  survey  of  the  evidence  of  Apostolic  times  would 
suggest  that  one  characteristic  that  prevailed  was  that  of 
orderliness.  This  took  the  form  that  circumstances  de¬ 
manded.  Officers  were  appointed  to  meet  each  emergency. 
The  action  of  the  Church  was  always  performed  in  a  formal 
and  dignified  manner.  The  Church  was  the  home  of  the 
Spirit ;  through  it,  therefore,  came  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  to 
its  members;  and  it  was  through  the  laying  on  of  hands  that 
through  the  Church  were  conferred  special  spiritual  gifts. 
We  have  no  knowledge  of  fixed  rules;  we  do  not  know  how 
far  any  particular  custom  was  universal.  It  may  well 
be  that  at  first  there  was  an  element  of  vagueness  and 
indefiniteness  in  some  places.  Yet  by  the  end  of  the  Apos¬ 
tolic  period  there  was  probably  a  fixed  and  universal  custom 
of  ordination  performed  by  the  Church  through  its  properly 
appointed  ministers. 


VIII 

In  interpreting  the  development  of  an  organized  Chris¬ 
tianity,  two  schools  of  thought  have  prevailed.  The  one 
would  ascribe  the  action  to  the  whole  Church,  the  other  to 
the  Christian  ministry.  According  to  the  one  we  must 
start  from  the  nucleus  of  the  small  body  of  disciples  who 

1  Acts  xiii.  2,  Afi Tovpyovvrojv  avrfitv  r<p  Kvpi (p  Kai  vrjcrrevovTiov.  Do 

these  words  refer  to  the  prophets  or  to  the  Ecclesia  ? 

2  1  Tim.  iv.  14;  2  Tim.  i.  6. 


86 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


met  together  in  the  upper  room,  who  received  the  gift  of 
the  Spirit,  in  whom  resided  divine  authority,  who  formed 
for  themselves  a  living  organism,  and  gradually  expanded 
into  the  Catholic  Church.  According  to  the  other  we  must 
start  from  the  Apostolic  College,  the  Twelve  who  had 
received  the  divine  commission,  through  whom  came  the 
gifts  of  the  Spirit,  who  were  the  leaders  in  the  growth  of 
the  society,  who  performed  its  spiritual  functions,  who 
appointed  the  officers  of  the  Church,  and  by  succession 
from  whom  comes  the  authority  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
Out  of  these  two  different  theories  have  been  devised  two 
different  conceptions  of  what  the  Church  should  be.  What 
judgement  on  them  does  our  study  of  Apostolic  times 
suggest  P1 

I  think  it  will  be  apparent  at  once  that  throughout  the 
Church  itself  is  spoken  of  as  the  organ  of  Christian  progress. 
At  every  step  forward  it  is  the  Church  that  acts.  When 
the  Seven  are  appointed  we  are  told  that  the  saying  pleased 
the  whole  multitude,  and  they  immediately  proceeded  to 
carry  it  out.  When  Peter  first  preaches  to  the  Gentiles  he 
reports  to  the  Church  and  his  action  is  approved.  It  is  to  the 
Church  at  Antioch  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  make  a  report 
of  their  first  great  mission.  It  is  the  Church  at  Antioch 
that  sends  Paul  and  Barnabas  to  Jerusalem  on  the  question 
of  circumcision,  and  the  whole  Church  joins  in  the  decision 
there  arrived  at.  A  study  of  St.  Paul’s  Epistles  presents 
to  us  the  local  churches  also  as  exercising  such  authority, 
not  indeed  as  independent  units,  but  as  integral  portions 
of  the  spiritual  whole,  yet  with  a  life  of  their  own.  They 
have  derived  their  life  from  the  Church  and  received  its 
teaching,  its  customs  and  its  ministry,  but  within  the  limit 
thus  assigned  they  are  self-governing  units,  reproducing 
and  extending  the  life  of  the  whole.  The  importance  of  the 
community  rather  than  the  officials  is  shewn  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  to  the  Church  that  the  Apostolic  letter  is  written 
and  the  Apostolic  directions  are  given. 

1  The  one  theory,  that  of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  is  brought 
out  most  fully  among  recent  writers  by  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia  ; 
the  other,  that  of  the  Apostles,  by  Gore,  The  Church  and  the  Ministry. 
It  may  be  suggested  that  each  is  inclined  to  neglect  or  ignore  the 
weight  of  some  of  the  evidence. 


AUTHORITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY 


87 


That  is  clearly  one  side.  But  it  must  be  balanced  by 
other  facts.  The  Church  always  acts  through  its  regular 
and  duly  constituted  ministers.  The  Apostles  were  chosen 
and  appointed  by  our  Lord  Himself  and  did  not  in  any 
way  derive  their  commission  from  the  Church.  They  take 
the  lead  in  all  the  Church’s  actions.  Through  them  it 
imparts  its  spiritual  gifts.  They  suggest  the  appointment 
of  the  Seven  and  they  lay  their  hands  on  them.  They  are 
the  preachers  and  teachers.  The  Church  abides  in  their 
doctrine.  They  in  particular  carry  the  message  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  preach  to,  and  convert  the  Samaritans  and  the 
Gentiles.  They  express  and  formulate  the  customs  of  the 
Church.  Other  ministers,  elected  often,  if  not  always,  by 
the  Church,  but  appointed  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,  per¬ 
form  similar  functions.  There  never  is  wanting  a  regular 
ministry,  and  the  Church  never  acts  but  through  them. 

It  was  certainly  no  inferior  position  that  was  ascribed  to 
the  ministers  of  the  Church.  They  owed  their  appointment, 
it  was  stated  in  one  place,  to  God,  in  another  to  Christ.1 
That  did  not  mean  that  there  was  anything  abnormal  in 
their  appointment,  but  that  the  spiritual  gifts  which  fitted 
them  for  their  work  came  from  the  Holy  Spirit  which  was 
the  Spirit  of  God  and  Christ,  and  that  the  Church  which 
had  called  them  to  this  office  and  appointed  them  to  it 
was  inspired  by  the  same  Spirit.  Wherever  the  Church  met 
together  there  was  Christ  in  the  midst  of  them  working 
through  His  Spirit,  and  the  ministers  of  the  Church  were  the 
divinely  appointed  organs  of  the  Church  in  its  life.  An 
organized  society  in  which  each  member  fulfilled  its  proper 
function  for  the  well-being  of  the  whole  was  the  ideal  of 
the  Church  as  it  presented  itself  to  St.  Paul.  The  Apostles, 
the  prophets,  the  evangelists,  the  pastors  and  teachers, 
exist  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  for  the  building  of  the  body  of  Christ.  The 
ultimate  goal  is  unity  in  Christ.  “  Till  all  come  to  the 
unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God.”2 

1  I  Cor,  xii.  28,  Kal  oi)f  p,kv  Weto  0  Qeoq  tv  rij  eiac\i]<jiq:  tt puirov  uttootoXovq 
K.T.a . ;  Eph.  iv.  II,  Kal  airog  e6i*)kev  Tovg  [dr  cnroaroXovg ,  rovg  6k  Trpocprjrag 
K,r  a.:  the  reference  is  to  Christ. 

2  Eph.  iv.  12,  13. 


88 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


I  venture  to  think  that  a  wise  theologian  will  not  lightly 
give  his  adherence  to  either  of  the  theories  which  have 
prevailed.  They  are  both  one-sided.  They  only  represent 
one  aspect.  Authority  resides  in  the  Church,  which  is  the 
home  of  the  Spirit,  but  it  has  always  acted  through  its  duly 
appointed  ministers.  The  Church  is  built  up  on  the  two 
principles  of  discipleship  and  ministry,  and  neither  in  our 
historical  investigation  nor  in  our  practical  churchmanship 
can  we  safely  subordinate  either. 

IX 

I  have  sketched,  so  far  as  I  am  able,  the  constitution  and 
idea  of  the  Church  of  Apostolic  times.  I  have  tried  to 
make  allowance  for  all  the  different  strains  of  thought  that 
seem  to  appear,  and  not  to  allow  myself  to  be  carried  away 
by  any  one-sided  theory.  I  dare  say  my  exposition  will 
not  quite  satisfy  anyone.  I  would  now  apply  the  prin¬ 
ciples  that  have  emerged  and  consider  what  practical 
deductions  are  suggested. 

i.  And  first  I  would  put  this  deduction.  It  is  a  negative 
one.  It  seems  to  me  clear  that  not  one  of  the  rival  systems 
of  Church  polity  which  prevail  at  the  present  day  can  find 
any  direct  support  in  the  New  Testament.  Let  us  take 
Episcopacy.  There  are  no  definite  Biblical  arguments  in 
favour  of  it.  The  name  we  have,  but  its  signification  is 
different.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  find  arguments 
in  favour  of  it,  the  position  of  James  the  Lord’s  brother,  the 
Angels  of  the  Churches  in  the  Revelation,  the  language  of 
the  Pastoral  Epistles.  A  more  careful  exegesis  will  show 
us  that  these  arguments  are  based  upon  misinterpretation. 
There  is  no  Biblical  authority  for  Episcopacy. 

But  that  is  equally  true  of  Presbyterianism.  It  is  quite 
true  that  there  are  presbyters  in  the  New  Testament,  but 
the  government  of  the  Church  is  not  Presbyterian.  The 
presbyters  are  local  officials,  not  of  great  importance,  who 
had  no  wide  influence  and  were  inferior,  perhaps  even  in 
a  sense  subordinate,  not  only  to  the  Apostles,  but  to  many 
others — Apostles,  evangelists,  prophets — who  were  the 
ministers  of  the  Universal  Church. 


APOSTOLIC  ORDERS 


89 

It  is  claimed  with  some  insistence  by  certain  writers  that 
the  early  Church  was  Congregational.  I  must  own  that 
so  far  as  I  understand  Congregationalism  such  a  theory 
seems  to  me  baseless.  It  is  true  that  each  local  church 
(which  probably  from  the  beginning  would  consist  of  several 
congregations)  had  an  independent  life  of  its  own,  but  it 
derived  that  life  and  authority  from  the  Universal  Church. 
From  that  comes  to  it  its  teaching,  its  ministry,  its  rules 
of  life  and  faith.  There  is  no  trace  of  evidence  for  the 
idea  that  the  whole  had  been  built  up  from  the  contempla¬ 
tion  or  amalgamation  of  separate  units.  The  local  church, 
although  it  had  a  Congregational  element,  was  not  Congre¬ 
gational.  It  was  not  the  unit  out  of  which  the  Church 
was  built,  but  the  local  representative  of  the  one  Church, 
which  was  prior  both  in  life  and  idea  as  an  organized  society. 

Nor,  lastly,  is  there  any  support  for  Romanism.  It  is 
true  that  for  a  time  St.  Peter  takes  the  lead  in  the  primitive 
Church,  but  he  is  only  first  in  order  of  precedency,  and  is 
subject  to  the  authority  of  the  Apostles  generally  and  of 
the  Church,  and  at  a  later  date  any  position  of  prominence 
is  held  by  St.  James. 

The  ministry  of  the  Apostolic  days  was  in  form  wholly 
temporary.  When  we  next  have  any  full  knowledge  of  its 
life  we  find  that  the  Apostles,  prophets,  and  evangelists 
are  a  memory  of  the  past,  the  embryo  Church  Sanhedrin  is 
swept  away,  the  local  churches  are  no  longer  governed  by  a 
body  of  presbyters,  but  by  bishops,  presbyters,  and  deacons, 
and  the  bishop  is  the  official  minister  of  the  whole  Church. 

2.  Then,  secondly,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  Apostles 
ever  gave  any  directions  about  the  future  government  of 
the  Church.  At  a  later  date  the  idea  prevailed  that  the 
whole  constitution  of  the  Church  as  it  then  existed  had 
an  Apostolic  origin,  and  was  based  on  definite  Apostolic 
injunctions.  To  express  this  idea  various  documents  were 
produced  under  different  names  —  the  T caching  of  the 
Apostles,  the  Apostolic  Church  Order ,  the  Apostolic  Con¬ 
stitutions,  the  Apostolic  Canons,  and  so  on.  Each  of  these 
documents  codified  the  custom  of  the  Church  at  the  time 
when  it  was  produced,  and  put  the  order  on  which  it  was 
based  in  the  mouths  of  the  Apostles  or  often  of  an  individual 


THE  APOSTOLIC  CHURCH 


90 

Apostle.  They  all  differ  from  one  another  in  many  details, 
although  they  often  work  up  the  same  material.  It  is 
clear  that  there  was  no  historical  tradition  of  any  value 
concerning  Apostolic  ordinances  in  the  Church.  The 
Apostles  and  the  Church  of  the  Apostles’  days  did  in  all 
things  what  the  times  demanded.  They  made  rules  for 
their  own  time,  not  for  the  future;  and  because  the  Church 
was  a  living  organism,  adapting  itself  to  newer  conditions, 
therefore  after  generations  modified  and  changed  the 
customs  which  had  come  down  to  them,  while  still  claiming 
to  obey  Apostolic  injunctions. 

3.  If,  then,  we  seek  in  the  New  Testament  for  rules  and 
regulations  concerning  the  organization  of  the  Church,  or 
if  we  attempt  to  justify  our  own  particular  system  of  Church 
order  as  exactly  reproducing  Apostolic  conditions,  our  task 
will  be  an  unprofitable  one,  for  not  only  would  our  historical 
interpretation  be  bad,  but  a  system  which  suited  the  Church 
of  the  first  century  would  be  entirely  unfit  for  the  Church 
of  the  twentieth.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  ask  the 
principles  on  which  the  Church  grew  our  work  will  be  amply 
rewarded.  We  are  presented  with  the  picture  of  a  society, 
a  living  organism,  inspired  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  capable 
of  adapting  itself  to  all  the  needs  that  arise.  It  is  an  orderly 
well-regulated  polity.  Under  the  guidance  of  its  first 
ministers,  who  had  been  appointed  by  the  Lord  Himself, 
it  appoints  the  officers  necessary  for  its  life,  and  it  modifies 
its  arrangements  as  circumstances  change.  It  develops  an 
orderly  method  of  appointment  by  prayer  and  laying  on 
of  hands.  We  do  not  know  whether  this  method  at  once 
became  universal;  we  know  that  it  ultimately  did.  The 
prayers  were  for  the  special  gifts  necessary  for  the  office. 
The  laying  on  of  hands  was  the  sacramental  rite  that 
accompanied  the  prayer.  In  all  it  did  the  Church  acted 
through  its  duly  appointed  ministers,  and  through  them  it 
gave  the  commission  to  those  that  it  appointed.  The 
Church,  following  the  example  of  our  Lord,  built  up  an 
ordered  ministry,  as  the  instrument  of  its  action,  the 
recipients  and  mediators  of  sacramental  grace. 

4.  And  as  the  Church  developed  its  own  organs,  it 
also  had  the  power  and  authority  to  initiate  and  carry 


CHURCH  AUTHORITY 


91 

through  the  policy  which  was  necessary  to  fulfil  its  mission. 
At  each  stage  in  advance,  it  acts  not  without  friction  and 
discussion  and  controversy,  but  with  freedom  and  boldness. 
There  was  a  continuous  succession  of  great  crises :  the  claims 
of  the  Hellenists,  the  conversion  of  the  Samaritans,  the 
first  baptism  of  Gentiles,  the  problem  of  the  Jewish  Law. 
And  as  the  Church  grew  the  local  societies,  too,  had  their 
problems  also  which  it  was  incumbent  upon  them  to  solve 
in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  whole  Church.  So  the 
Church  grew  and  developed  until  the  time  came  that  its 
first  teachers  and  ministers  passed  away  and  it  had  to  brace 
itself  for  newer  and  harder  problems. 

It  is  in  this  way  we  must  learn  the  lessons  of  the  Apostolic 
age.  We  want  no  antiquarianism.  We  do  not  want  to 
transport  into  the  twentieth  century  the  form  of  the  first. 
We  want  to  learn  its  principles  and  be  inspired  with  its 
spirit.  We  want  to  be  able  to  transform  our  inherited 
organization  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  day,  as  it  created 
new  forms,  and  we  want  to  exhibit  the  same  boldness  and 
statesmanship  in  face  of  the  problems  of  a  divided  Chris¬ 
tianity  which  the  Church  of  the  Apostles  displayed  on  the 
great  question  of  the  place  and  duties  of  the  Gentiles.  We 
want  life  and  courage. 


LECTURE  III 

THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

“  But  now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye  who  sometimes  were  far  off  are  made 
nigh  by  the  blood  of  Christ  ...  in  whom  all  the  building  fitly  framed 
together  groweth  into  an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord.,> — Eph.  ii.  13,  21. 

Episcopacy.  The  influence  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  Changes  in 
the  organization  of  the  Church.  Development  of  monarchical 
episcopacy.  Episcopal  ordination.  The  bishop  an  officer  of  the 
whole  Church.  Meaning  of  development.  Authority  of  Episcopacy. 

The  Catholic  Church.  Meaning  of  the  word.  Growth  of  the 
conception.  Characteristics  of  the  Church.  A  visible  society.  The 
sphere  of  the  Spirit.  The  home  of  salvation.  Practical  questions. 
Good  and  evil  within  the  Church.  Relation  to  heretics  and  schis¬ 
matics. 

The  principles  of  the  Church.  The  ministry.  Its  importance. 
Its  universality.  The  constitutional  position  of  a  bishop.  Rela¬ 
tions  to  clergy  and  people.  Absence  of  representative  government. 
Relations  to  the  whole  Church.  Church  Councils.  Opinions  of 
Cyprian.  Later  views.  Unity  and  uniformity.  Two  theories  of 
relation  of  bishop  to  Church. 

The  theory  of  Orders.  The  Apostolical  Succession.  Different 
meanings  of  the  term.  Succession  of  office  and  succession  by 
ordination.  What  made  an  ordination  valid  ?  The  ordination 
service  of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions.  The  conditions  of  a  proper 
ordination. 

The  origin  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Not  in  its  constitution 
Apostolical.  Not  a  perversion.  An  organic  development.  The 
Church  capable  of  growth  and  modification.  The  true  spirit  of 
the  undivided  Church. 

In  what  is  probably  the  oldest  monument  of  Christian 
literature  outside  the  New  Testament  there  appears  the 
interesting  statement  that  the  Apostles  foreknew  that 
there  would  be  strife  concerning  the  office  of  the  bishop.1 
Unfortunately,  the  writer  himself  does  not  exhibit  equal 
prescience,  for  the  information  that  he  gives  us,  although 
no  doubt  quite  clear  to  his  contemporaries,  is  so  ambiguous 

1  Clemens  Romanus,  xliv.  The  passage  is  quoted  in  full  below, 
p.  100. 


92 


THE  FALL  OF  JERUSALEM  93 

and  difficult  of  interpretation  that,  instead  of  allaying 
strife,  as  he  no  doubt  intended,  it  has  afforded  material 
for  controversy  ever  since  the  modern  world  began  to 
discuss  these  questions.  It  is  this  difficult  problem  that 
we  have  now  to  approach.  My  subject  to-day  will  be  the 
development  of  Episcopacy  and  the  organization  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 


I 

In  the  year  a.d.  70  occurred  one  of  those  events  which 
have  impressed  the  imagination  of  all  ages  both  by  its 
terrible  character  and  its  far-reaching  importance — the 
capture  and  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus.  It  is 
stated  that  after  the  victory  a  council  was  held  at  which 
the  fate  of  the  temple  was  discussed.  Some,  obedient  to 
the  Roman  traditions  of  religious  tolerance,  would  have 
left  it  standing.  But  Titus  was  of  opinion  that  it  should 
be  destroyed.  Thus,  two  evil  things,  Judaism  and  Chris¬ 
tianity,  might  be  more  completely  extirpated.  Although 
opposed  to  one  another  they  sprang  from  the  same  root; 
and  if  the  root  were  torn  up,  the  stem  would  be  destroyed.1 
The  story  is  interesting,  for  it  reveals  how  singularly 
ineffective  military  action  generally  is  against  religious 
opinions.  The  Jewish  nation  was  destroyed,  but  Judaism 
became  probably  a  more  potent  influence  in  the  world, 
and  at  the  present  time  the  number  of  J  ews  is  far  greater 
than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Titus.  As  to  Christianity,  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  was  decisive  for  its  future  success. 
It  meant  the  complete  emancipation  of  the  new  faith  from 

1  Sulpicii  Severi  Historia  Sacra  ii.  30,  “  Fertur  Titus  adhibito 
consilio  prius  deliberasse,  an  templum  tanti  operis  everteret.  Etenim 
nonnullis  videbatur,  aedem  sacratam,  ultra  omnia  mortalia  illus- 
trem,  non  debere  deleri:  quae  servata  modestiae  Romanae  testi¬ 
monium,  diruta  perennem  crudelitatis  notam  praeberet.  At  contra 
alii  et  Titus  ipse  evertendum  templum  in  primis  censebant,  quo 
plenius  Iudaeorum  et  Christianorum  religio  tolleretur.  Quippe 
has  religiones  licet  contrarias  sibi  iisdem  tamen  auctoribus  pro- 
fectas :  Christianos  ex  Iudaeis  exstitisse :  radice  sublata  stirpem 
facile  perituram.”  On  this  passage  see  Ramsay  {The  Church  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  p.  255),  who  adheres  to  the  opinion  of  Bernays 
[Gesammelte  Ahhandlungen)  and  Mommsen  {Provinces,  ii.,  p.  216) 
that  this  passage  is  based  on  the  lost  portion  of  the  Histories  of 
Tacitus. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


94 

the  Judaism  in  which  it  had  grown  up;  it  destroyed  the 
influence  of  an  imperfect  Christianity;  it  enabled  all  the 
freer  elements  to  assert  themselves;  it  made  an  end  of  its 
dependence  on  a  central  authority  in  Jerusalem. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Church  was  governed  in  Apostolic 
times  by  the  Apostles,  how  it  naturally  took  direction 
from  the  mother-city,  how  there  was  danger  of  a  Christian 
Sanhedrin  growing  up,  and  what  a  considerable  position 
was  occupied  by  James,  the  Lord’s  brother.  The  Church 
was  governed  too,  or,  perhaps,  rather  its  cohesion  main¬ 
tained,  by  a  ministry,  missionary  in  its  origin,  of  Apostles, 
evangelists,  and  prophets.  The  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
coincided  with  other  changes.  The  original  Apostles 
passed  away;  the  spread  of  Christianity  among  the  Gentiles 
more  and  more  reduced  the  Jewish  influence  to  unimpor¬ 
tance;  the  need  for  settled  rule  took  the  place  of  missionary 
effort  as  Christian  societies  came  to  be  established  in  every 
city,  and  as  a  consequence  the  missionary  ministry  declined 
in  reputation  and  spiritual  effectiveness.  The  result  of 
all  these  changes  was  that  the  ministry  of  the  local  and 
established  churches  became  more  and  more  important. 
Apostles,  prophets,  evangelists,  teachers  gradually  vanish 
away.  Their  place  is  taken  by  bishops  and  presbyters 
who  govern  the  local  church,  and  the  cohesion  of  the  whole 
body  is  maintained  by  the  personal  intercourse  of  the 
bishops,  and  by  the  authority  of  Church  synods,  which 
gradually  grew  and  increased  in  importance  as  Christianity 
developed, until  they  culminated  in  the  (Ecumenical  Council. 

The  transformation  which  was  thus  effected  we  know 
quite  well.  We  have  considerable,  if  perhaps  not  quite 
sufficient,  evidence  for  the  earlier  period.  We  have  ample 
information  about  the  latter.  Unfortunately,  the  manner 
of  transformation  is  almost  entirely  a  matter  of  conjecture. 
The  growth  of  Episcopacy  took  place  in  just  those  forty 
or  fifty  years  of  Christian  history  about  which  we  have 
least  information,  and  therefore  presents  one  of  the  most 
debated  problems  in  theological  discussion.  It  is  no  doubt 
in  part  controversial  interest  which  has  made  the  problem 
so  complicated,  but  as  far  as  I  can  judge  that  is  only  partially 
the  cause.  The  real  reason  why  we  find  it  so  difficult  to 


MONARCHICAL  EPISCOPACY 


95 

trace  the  early  history  of  the  episcopal  office  is  that  we  have 
little  contemporary  information  about  it,  that  what  we  have 
is  ambiguous  and  sometimes  inconsistent,  and  that  it  does 
not  answer  the  questions  which  present-day  theology  is  so 
anxious  to  ask. 

The  first  part  of  our  task  is  to  investigate  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  Episcopacy.  This  really  involves  three  separate 
questions : 

1.  What  account  can  we  give  of  the  rise  of  what  we 

may  call  monarchical  episcopacy  ? 

2.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  rule  of  episcopal  ordina- 

>  tion  ? 

3.  What  were  the  steps  by  which  the  bishop  became 

an  officer,  not  merely  of  the  local  church,  but  of 
the  Catholic  Church  ? 

1.  What  was  the  origin  of  monarchical  episcopacy  ? 
The  problem  is  this:  So  far  as  we  have  information, 
during  the  Apostolic  and  the  earlier  sub-Apostolic  periods 
the  Church  was  governed  by  a  college  of  presbyters  who 
were  also  called  bishops.  This  seems  to  have  been  the 
case  at  Corinth  between  the  years  a.d.  go  and  100.  But 
by  the  time  of  Ignatius,  whose  death  cannot  be  placed 
much  later  than  the  year  a.d.  no,  a  local  community  was 
governed  by  a  single  bishop  with  the  assistance  of  a  body 
of  presbyters  and  deacons,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  Ignatius, 
a  bishop  was  essential  to  a  church.  From  this  time  onwards 
we  find  no  other  custom.  How  and  when  did  the  change 
take  place  ? 

Let  us  work  backward  from  a  period  about  which  we 
have  fuller  information.  For  the  years  175-250  we  have 
a  body  of  well-known  writers  whose  works  have  been,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  preserved  to  us — Irenaeus,  Tertullian, 
Hippolytus,  Clement,  Origen,  and  many  of  less  note;  from 
them  we  can  learn  what  was  the  life,  the  faith,  and  the 
polity  of  the  Christian  Church  of  their  day.  Now  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  then  Episcopacy  was  the 
universal  custom,  and  that  it  was  believed  that  it  went 
back  in  its  origin  to  the  times  of  the  Apostles.  The  question 
was  one  of  importance  for  reasons  which  we  shall  discuss 
lader,  a,nd  it  was  clearly  believed  that  the  more  important 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


96 

churches  could  exhibit  lists  of  the  bishops  of  the  see  going 
back  to  an  Apostolic  founder.  This  was  the  case  at  Jeru¬ 
salem,1  at  Antioch,2  in  the  churches  of  Asia,3  at  Rome,4 
and  probably  in  Alexandria,5  of  which  church  St.  Mark 
was  the  reputed  founder;  no  doubt  also  in  other  churches, 
such  as  Corinth.6  Now  the  evidence  is  early  and  good, 
but  it  is  not  conclusive.  In  a  hundred  years  there  is 
undoubtedly  sufficient  time  for  traditions  which  have 
only  an  imperfect  foundation  to  spring  up:  customs  will 
change  subtly,  and  a  growth  which  is  gradual  will  not  be 
perceived. 

But  the  early  origin  of  Episcopacy  is  corroborated  by 
other  evidence.  The  most  decisive,  of  course,  is  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  Ignatius.  He  presents  an  episcopacy  very  much 
as  we  know  it,  extending  from  Antioch  to  Ephesus;  in  his 
opinion  it  prevails  universally  in  the  Christian  Church ;  and 

1  On  the  list  of  the  Bishops  of  Jerusalem  see  Lightfoot,  The 
Christian  Ministry,  p.  42;  Renan,  Origines  du  Christianisme,  v., 
p.  55;  Harnack,  Chronologie  der  Altchristliche  Litteratur,  i.,  pp.  219- 
230;  Turner,  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  July,  1900,  i.,  p.  529. 
And  on  episcopal  lists  generally  the  same  writer  in  J.  T.  S.t  January, 
1900,  i.,  p.  181,  January  to  April,  1917,  pp.  103,  117. 

2  The  list  of  the  Bishops  of  Antioch  is  given  us  by  Eusebius. 
See  Lightfoot,  Ignatius,  i.,  p.  29;  ii.,  pp.  450-468;  Clement,  i.,  pp.  201, 
223-4;  Harnack,  Chronologie,  i.,  pp.  208-218. 

3  On  the  churches  of  Asia  see  especially  Irenaeus,  III.  iii.,  4  (ed. 
Harvey),  iced  Tlo\vKap7rog  .  .  .  in ro  ’AttocttoXcjv  KaravTaQdg  dg  rrjv  'Aaiav  kv 
ry  kv  Sjuvpvy  iiocXyai q  iTrivKOTroQ ;  Tertullian,  Adv.  Marcionem,  iv.  5, 
“  Ordo  episcoporum  ad  originem  recensus  in  Ioannem  stabit 
auctorem  ”;  Lightfoot,  Christian  Ministry,  pp.  48,  49;  Ignatius,  i. 

3 17- 

4  On  the  list  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome  see  Duchesne,  Liber  Ponti- 
ficalis,  I.  i.;  Lightfoot,  Clement  of  Rome,  i.  202-345,  Early  Roman 
Succession  (where  references  will  be  found  to  earlier  discussions) ; 
Harnack,  Chronologie,  pp.  144-202.  See  also  Turner,  besides  the 
references  above,  f .  T.  S.,  July,  1916,  xvii.,  p.  338. 

5  The  list  of  the  Bishops  of  Alexandria  is  given  by  Eusebius  in 
his  Ecclesiastical  History  and  Chronicle.  See  Lightfoot,  Christian 
Ministry,  p.  68;  Harnack,  Chronologie,  pp.  202-207. 

6  Dionysius  of  Corinth,  who  flourished  in  the  third  quarter  of 
the  second  century,  thought  that  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  was  the 
first  Bishop  of  Athens  (7 rpCorog  rrjg  kv  ’AOyvcug  TcapoiKicig  ti)v  t7ncK07n)v 
kyKsxdpnrro) ;  see  Eusebius,  Eccl.  Hist.,  iv.  23.  Whether  there  was  any 
authentic  tradition  or  not  this  shews  how  early  the  idea  prevailed 
that  the  succession  of  bishops  went  back  to  the  Apostles. 
Hegesippus  [op.  cit.,  iv.  22)  gives  us  to  understand  that  in  all  the 
cities  he  passed  through  (he  specially  mentions  Corinth)  there 
was  a  succession  of  bishops  (kv  eicctory  diadoyy  Kai  kv  tKaerry  7 ro\e<). 


EARLY  ORIGIN  OF  EPISCOPACY 


97 

he  has  no  knowledge  of  any  church  without  it.1  This  wide 
prevalence  and  strong  authority  implies  an  early  origin, 
and  perhaps  Apostolic  sanction.  His  evidence  for  Asia  at 
any  rate  is  supported  by  other  writers.  A  tradition  found 
in  Clement  of  Alexandria,2  and  supported  by  many  other 
writers,  states  that  the  Apostle  John  appointed  bishops 
in  Asia.  But  perhaps  the  strongest  evidence  for  an  early 
and  authoritative  origin  for  Episcopacy  in  this  sense  is  that 
it  grew  up  and  established  itself,  so  far  as  we  are  aware, 
without  any  controversy  or  contention. 

But  then  there  is  the  other  side.  There  were  no  bishops 
in  the  monarchical  sense  in  the  times  covered  by  the  New 
Testament.  The  name  bishop  was  a  synonym  for  presbyter, 
and  it  remains  so  at  Rome  and  Corinth  shortly  before  the 
year  a.d.  ioo,3  and  there  is  some,  but  not  very  consider¬ 
able,  evidence  for  Church  government  by  presbyters  during 
the  second  century.4 

Now,  how  can  we  account  for  this  discrepancy  ?  There 

1  Extracts  from  his  letters  are  given  below.  The  argument  that, 
because  he  does  not  mention  bishops  in  writing  to  the  Romans, 
he  knew  that  there  was  no  Bishop  of  Rome,  is  absurd.  The  idea 
that  if  a  writer  does  not  refer  to  bishops  he  did  not  know  about 
them  is  as  foolish  if  used  of  that  time  as  it  would  be  now.  Ignatius 
does  not  refer  to  a  bishop  in  Rome  because  he  is  not  dealing  with 
questions  of  doctrine  or  church  order.  He  clearly  thinks  that  a 
church  is  not  a  church  without  a  bishop,  and  speaks  of  the  bishops 
“to  the  ends  of  the  earth.”  If  when  he  arrived  at  Rome  he  found 
there  was  no  bishop,  it  would  have  given  him  a  considerable  shock. 

2  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Quis  dives  salvetur?  xlii.  2,  6ttov  pb> 
iiTMiKoirovQ  KaracrTrjiTiiJV,  oirov  St  o\ag  kiac\r)mag  app.6oiov,  uttov  St  K\ijpov  tv  a  ye 
Ttva  K\r)pri)G(t)v  ru)v  vivo  tov  Tcvtvp-arog  orip,aivop.tvwv. 

3  Clem.  Rom.  xliv.  The  passage  is  quoted  in  full  below,  p.  ioo. 
The  identity  of  the  terms  presbyter  and  episcopus  is  undoubted. 
After  speaking  of  the  episcopi  who  have  been  improperly  thrust  out 
of  their  office,  he  goes  on  to  refer  to  the  happiness  of  those  presbyters 
who  have  already  died,  as  they  have  therefore  been  freed  from 
such  an  indignity.  Clement  has  probably  preferred  the  name 
episcopus  because  it  enables  him  to  apply  a  quotation  from  the 
LXX.  Evidence  has  been  found  (and  not  unreasonably)  that 
Clement  knew  of  three  orders  in  the  fact  that  he  compares  the  high 
priest,  the  priests,  and  the  Levites  to  the  Christian  ministry  (chap.  xl.). 

4  The  most  often  quoted  instance  is  Polycarp,  Letter  to  the 
Philippians,  where  he  refers  to  presbyters  and  deacons  but  not 
to  a  bishop  (chap.  V.)  *.  v7rOTaoao[jisvovg  rolg  7rpt<jfivrtpoLg  icai  Siaicovoig  bg 
0£<p  icai  xpiGT/p.  This  is,  of  course,  quite  compatible  with  the  theory 
suggested  below.  (See  Lightfoot,  Ignatius  and  Polycarp,  i.  578.) 
So  also  it  is  pointed  out  that  Epiphanius  ( Panarion ,  xlii.  i.)  tells  us 
that  Marcion  was  excommunicated  by  the  Roman  presbyters. 

7 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


98 

are,  I  think,  certain  points  in  the  history  of  the  ministry 
in  later  times  which  perhaps  explain  all  the  facts.  In 
Irenaeus  and  other  writers,  although  bishops  and  presbyters 
are  clearly  distinguished,  yet  the  bishop  may  be  spoken  of 
as  a  presbyter,  and  is  included  in  their  number;1  that  is, 
the  bishop  is  a  member  and  president  of  a  college  of  pres¬ 
byters.  It  is  well  known  also  that,  according  to  one  line 
of  Church  tradition,  bishops  and  presbyters  are  not  distin¬ 
guished  as  separate  orders,2  and  that  some  authorities 
emphasize  the  large  identity  that  there  is  in  their  functions. 
A  bishop,  it  is  said,  is  only  distinguished  from  a  presbyter 
by  the  episcopal  chair  and  ordination — i.e.,  by  the  fact 
that  he  is  president,  and  that  he  is  essential  for  ordination;3 
and  it  must  further  be  remembered  that  in  the  ordination 
of  priests,  it  is  the  priests,  with  the  bishop  as  president, 
that  perform  the  ceremony  and  not  the  bishop  alone. 

Now,  taking  these  facts  as  our  guide,  we  can,  I  think, 
construct  a  fairly  probable  theory.  From  the  beginning 
there  was,  as  we  have  seen,  in  every  Christian  community 
a  body  of  presbyters;  such  a  body  must  also  have  had  its 
chairman,  who  may  well  have  been  permanent,  but  who 
would  not  at  first  have  been  a  person  of  any  great  impor¬ 
tance.  Gradually,  as  the  Apostles  passed  away,  and  the 
missionary  element  in  the  Church  declined  in  usefulness 
and  prestige  and  influence,  the  local  ministry  would  rise  in 
importance,  and  in  particular  its  chairman  would  become 
the  representative  of  the  community  to  those  without. 
Gradually,  by  a  process  which  was  quite  natural  but  cannot 

1  The  testimony  of  Irenaeus  is  examined  carefully  by  Lightfoot, 

Ignatius,  i.  377-379-  “  A  bishop  may  still  be  called  tt pzafivTtpoQ, 

but  a  presbyter  is  not  now  called  conversely  tTrivKOTrog.”  Cf. 
Haer.,  IV.  xl.  2,  “Quapropter  eis  qui  in  ecclesia  sunt  presbyteris 
obaudire  oportet,  his  qui  successionem  habent  ab  Apostolis,  sicut 
ostendimus :  qui  cum  episcopatus  successione  charisma  veritatis 
certum  secundum  placitum  Patris  acceperunt.” 

2  See  especially  the  dissertation  in  Morinus  De  ordinationibus  : 
Exercitatio  III.,  “  De  Episcopatus  a  Presbyteratu  distinctione.” 

3  Hieron.,  Epp.  lxix.,  cxlvi.;  Ad  Tit.,  i.  5;  Ambrosiaster  on 
1  Tim.  iii.  10:  “Every  bishop  is  a  presbyter,  but  every  presbyter 
is  not  a  bishop;  for  he  is  a  bishop  who  is  first  among  the  presbyters 
Canones  Hippolyti,  iv.  32  ( Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  vi.  4,  p.  61), 
“  Episcopus  in  omnibus  rebus  aequiparetur  presbytero  excepto 
nomine  cathedrae  et  ordinatione,  quia  potestas  ordinandi  ipsi  non 
tribuitur.” 


EPISCOPAL  ORDINATION 


99 


be  traced,  the  name  episcopus  or  bishop,  which  had  been 
formerly  shared  by  all  presbyters,  would  be  specialized, 
just  as  was  the  case  with  the  name  deacon,  which  was  at 
first  used  of  all  Christian  ministers.  The  process  appears 
to  be  a  natural  one,  and  will  explain  the  facts.  It  will 
explain,  for  example,  how  Linus,  who  had  been  the  con¬ 
temporary  of  the  Apostles  and  had  been  appointed  by 
them,  could  be  considered  quite  correctly  the  first  Roman 
bishop,  although  he  was  probably  never  so  called  in  his 
lifetime.  It  would  explain  how  the  Apostle  John,  or,  if 
you  like,  that  other  John  who  in  later  writers  became  con¬ 
fused  with  him,  may  well  have  appointed  bishops,  as  he 
organized  whole  churches  in  Asia,  without  formally  institut¬ 
ing  a  new  order  of  the  Christian  ministry. 

The  change,  then,  was  a  gradual  one.  Episcopacy,  like 
all  other  Church  customs,  had  its  roots  in  Apostolic  times ; 
but  Episcopacy,  as  it  existed  in  later  days,  was  not  the 
direct  result  of  Apostolic  action,  but  was  the  creation  of  the 
Church,  which  gradually  moulded  its  institutions  to  fit  the 
altered  needs  of  the  times.  We  have  seen  what  those 
needs  were :  they  were  caused  by  the  destruction  of  every¬ 
thing  which  had  given  coherency  and  unity  to  the  Church. 
Time  and  change  had  swept  away  all  those  links  which 
bound  the  local  societies  together.  They  might,  under 
such  circumstances,  have  developed  in  many  different 
directions ;  but  the  strong  sense  of  unity  implanted  in  them 
from  the  beginning,  the  inevitable  result  of  their  origin, 
prevented  any  such  thing;  and  the  Church,  out  of  ele¬ 
ments  left  it  by  the  Apostles,  forged  for  itself  a  strong, 
elastic  form  of  government  which  never  checked  free 
development,  but  enabled  it  to  present  to  the  world  a 
splendid  coherent  solidarity. 

2.  The  second  question  is  the  origin  of  the  rule  of  episcopal 
ordination.  In  the  developed  rule  of  the  Christian  Church 
the  one  function  that  particularly  and  certainly  belongs 
to  a  bishop  is  ordination.  The  rules  of  the  Church  de¬ 
manded  that  a  bishop  should  be  consecrated  by  at  least 
three  other  bishops,  that  a  presbyter  should  be  ordained 
by  the  laying  on  of  hands  of  the  bishop  and  presbyters, 
and  that  a  deacon  should  be  ordained  by  a  bishop.  These 


100 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


customs  became  definitely  fixed  by  canon,  and  ecclesiastical 
law  forbids  any  others  than  bishops  to  ordain,  and  normally, 
at  any  rate,  looks  on  ordinations  not  made  by  a  bishop  as 
invalid.  This  rule,  perhaps  indeed  not  in  quite  so  rigid 
a  form,  or  always  adhered  to,  certainly  prevailed  in  the  third 
century.  Whence  did  it  arise  ? 

Here,  again,  we  shall  find  our  problem  difficult  owing  to 
the  great  paucity  of  trustworthy  and  unambiguous  evidence. 
Even  more  than  in  the  case  of  the  origin  of  Episcopacy  we 
shall  find  ourselves  groping  in  the  dark,  and  easily  misled 
by  false  and  uncertain  light. 

Our  earliest  evidence  is  contained  in  a  well-known  passage 
of  Clement  of  Rome,  written  shortly  before  the  year  a.d.  ioo, 
to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  We  must  now 
quote  it  in  full : 

“  The  Apostles  received  the  Gospel  for  us  from  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ;  Jesus  Christ  was  sent  forth  from 
God.  Christ  then  was  from  God  and  the  Apostles 
from  Christ.  Both  therefore  were  from  the  will  of 
God  in  perfect  order.  Having  then  received  commands 
and  being  fully  assured  through  the  resurrection  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  being  confirmed  in  the 
word  of  God  with  full  assurance  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
they  went  forth,  preaching  the  good  tidings  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand.  Preaching  therefore 
from  country  to  country  and  from  city  to  city,  they 
appointed  their  first  fruits,  having  tested  them  by  the 
Spirit,  to  be  bishops  and  deacons  to  them  that  should 
believe.  And  this  was  no  new  thing,  for  indeed  of 
old  Scripture  had  spoken  of  bishops  and  deacons. 
For  Scripture  speaketh  somewhat  in  this  way:  ‘  I  will 
appoint  their  bishops  in  righteousness  and  their  deacons 
in  faith.’  ”1 

Then,  after  a  chapter  in  which  Clement  supports  his  argu¬ 
ment  by  the  authority  of  the  priests  under  the  Old  Covenant, 
he  proceeds : 

“  And  our  Apostles  knew  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  that  there  will  be  strife  over  the  name  of  episco- 

1  Clem.  Rom.  xlii. 


THE  TESTIMONY  OF  CLEMENT 


IOI 


pacy.  For  this  cause  therefore,  having  received  com¬ 
plete  foreknowledge,  they  appointed  the  aforesaid,  and 
afterwards  they  laid  down  a  rule1  that  if  they  should 
fall  asleep  other  approved  men  should  succeed  to  their 
ministration.  Those  then  who  were  appointed  by  them 
(that  is,  the  Apostles)  or  afterwards  by  other  men  of 
repute,  with  the  consent  of  the  whole  Church,  and 
have  ministered  blamelessly  to  the  flock  of  Christ 
peacefully  and  with  dignity,  in  all  modesty,  and  for  a 
long  time  have  borne  a  good  repute  from  all,  these 
we  consider  to  be  unjustly  thrust  out  from  their 
ministration/’2 

Now  this  passage,  unfortunately,  is  in  many  ways 
ambiguous,  and  just  fails  to  give  us  the  information  that 
we  desire,  but  it  does  tell  us  something.  Let  us  remember 
that  it  comes  from  one  who,  if  not  Bishop  of  Rome,  was 
at  any  rate  a  man  of  great  importance  in  the  Roman  Church, 
and  that  he  writes  very  little  more  than  twenty  years  after 
the  deaths  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter,  that  in  all  probability 
he  had  known  them  and  received  instruction  from  them. 
He  tells  us,  and  clearly  his  authority  is  good,  that  the  local 
ministries  were  in  the  first  place  appointed  by  the  Apostles, 
who  had  further  laid  down  a  rule  for  the  appointment  or 
ordination  of  others  in  their  place.  Some  of  the  presbyters 
of  Corinth  had  been  appointed  by  Apostles,  others  at  a 
later  date  by  other  leading  men.  Unfortunately  he  does 
not  tell  us  what  the  rule  was,  nor  who  were  the  dis¬ 
tinguished  men  other  than  the  Apostles.  The  difficulty, 
moreover,  of  correlating  the  statements  of  Clement  with 
later  conditions  is  further  increased  by  the  fact  that  he 
uses  the  Words  bishop  and  presbyter  as  synonymous  terms. 
He  knows  nothing  so  far  as  the  name  goes  of  a  bishop  in 
the  later  sense  of  the  term. 

It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  discover  what  was  the 
custom  of  ordination  or  appointment  to  which  he  refers. 
His  language  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  theory  that  the 

1  Reading  xai  l7avojxi)v  SeSuKcimv.  The  Latin  version  reads 

“  et  postmodum  legem  dederunt.” 

2  Op.  cit.,  xliv. 


102 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


later  rule  of  the  Church  already  prevailed;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  equally  consistent  with  the  supposition  (held  by 
some)  that  the  other  men  of  repute  were  prophets  or  evan¬ 
gelists  whose  influence  may  not  yet  have  died  out.  But 
all  this  is  guess-work,  and  we  cannot  build  up  evidence  of 
Apostolic  custom  on  guess-work.  What  we  gather  from 
Clement’s  language,  and  it  is  of  great  importance  to 
emphasize  this,  is  that  throughout  his  Epistle  the  sense  of 
order  prevails  to  a  remarkable  extent.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  rule,  and  whoever  may  have  been  the  officers,  this 
much  is  certain,  that  Clement  believed  that  the  constitution 
and  orderly  government  of  the  Church  depended  upon  rules 
of  Apostolic  origin.  As  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  rules  of 
the  priesthood  and  the  conduct  of  worship,  law  and  order 
prevailed,  so  in  the  New  Covenant  all  things  must  be  done 
decently  and  in  order,  and  according  to  established  custom. 
It  is  of  importance  also  to  notice  that  great  stress  is  laid 
by  Clement,  as  we  find  afterwards  on  many  occasions,  on 
the  fact  that  the  presbyters  or  bishops  had  been  appointed 
with  the  consent  of  the  whole  Church. 

What  is  clear,  then,  is  that  the  ministers  of  the  Church 
were  appointed  or  ordained  according  to  a  rule  which  was 
believed  to  be  of  Apostolic  origin. 

When  we  pass  to  a  later  period  we  are  struck  by  the 
paucity  of  information.  Although  much  is  said  during 
the  second  century  about  the  clergy,  nothing,  as  far  as  I 
am  aware,  is  said  about  their  mode  of  appointment  or  their 
ordination.  It  is  one  of  those  things  which  are  assumed. 
When  we  pass  to  the  third  century  we  find  the  rules  of 
ordination  already  described  prevalent,  and  believed  to  be 
of  Apostolic  origin.  There  is,  however,  a  considerable 
amount  of  evidence — none  of  it  indeed  certain  or  conclusive 
— which  would  suggest  that  these  rules  had  not  always  or 
universally  prevailed.  There  is  some  evidence  that  the 
Bishops  of  Alexandria  had  at  one  time  been  ordained  by 
the  other  presbyters/  and  this,  without  much  warrant,  is 

1  The  fullest  discussion  of  the  problem  that  I  know  is  in  Gore, 
The  Church  and  the  Ministry ,  1 15-130,  315-320,  who  adds  references 
to  the  literature.  1  can  hardly  endorse  all  Bishop  Gore’s  conten¬ 
tions,  but  he  is  certainly  correct  in  emphasizing  the  precarious 
character  of  the  evidence. 


THE  BISHOP  AND  THE  CHURCH  103 

taken  as  proving  that  originally  all  bishops  had  been 
appointed  in  this  way — a  most  precarious  inference.  An 
early  Church  Order  suggests  a  theory  of  appointment  quite 
different  from  that  of  later  times,1  and  other  instances  have 
been  found  of  ordinations  which  more  developed  custom 
would  have  considered  irregular.  But  the  negative  evidence 
is  of  little  more  value  than  the  positive. 

The  conclusion  that  I  would  put  to  you  is  this:  Clearly 
in  Apostolic  times  ordination  was  by  laying  on  of  hands 
with  prayer  through  the  duly  appointed  ministry  of  the 
Church.  No  doubt  such  a  custom  always  continued.  The 
exact  form  it  took  depended  upon  the  rule  of  the  Church, 
and  this  gradually  became  fixed  and  definite.  But  we  have 
no  means  of  tracing  the  history  of  the  development,  nor 
adequate  reason  for  thinking  that  the  later  custom  was 
based  upon  definite  Apostolic  rule.  Rather,  here  as  else¬ 
where,  the  Church  adapted  Apostolic  customs  to  the  needs 
of  the  age.  The  source  was  Apostolic  tradition,  the  rules 
were  the  rules  of  the  Church. 

3.  Let  us  take,  thirdly,  the  history  of  the  steps  by  which 
the  bishop  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  officer  of  the 
universal  as  well  as  of  the  local  church. 

Let  me  ask  you  first  to  consider  the  episcopal  office  as 
presented  to  us  by  the  letters  of  St.  Ignatius,  and  let  me 
remind  you  of  the  date  at  which  they  were  written,  about 
a.d.  no,  and  that  they  are  almost  the  only  writings  of 
that  period  which  have  been  preserved,  a  fact  which  may 
suggest  that  they  were  generally  considered  to  represent 
the  mind  of  the  Church. 

Now  the  picture  that  he  presents  to  us  is  that  of  the 
Church  held  together  mainly  by  the  influence  of  bishops. 

1  The  Apostolic  Church  Order,  chap.  16  (see  Harnack,  Texte  und 
TJntersuchungen,  II.,  i.  p.  233),  “  If  the  population  be  small  and 
there  be  less  than  twelve  men  able  to  vote  for  a  bishop,  let  them 
write  to  the  neighbouring  churches,  where  there  happens  to  be  one 
well  established,  that  three  chosen  men  may  come  from  there  and 
test  whether  the  man  to  be  appointed  is  worthy.”  It  is  often  held 
on  the  basis  of  this  passage  that  originally  the  three  bishops  who 
came  to  an  ordination  did  so,  not  for  the  sake  of  ordaining  the 
new  bishop,  but  to  add  outside  witness  to  the  suitability  of  the 
appointment,  and  that  probably  each  community  could  appoint 
and  ordain  for  itself.  This  again  is  a  precarious  inference. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


104 

He  speaks  of  them  as  a  body  of  persons  extending  through¬ 
out  the  world  as  he  knew  it : 

“  But  since  love  doth  not  suffer  me  to  be  silent 
concerning  you,  therefore  was  I  forward  to  exhort 
you,  that  ye  run  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  God: 
for  Jesus  Christ  also,  our  inseparable  life,  is  the  mind 
of  the  Father,  even  as  the  bishops  that  are  settled  in 
fhe  farthest  parts  of  the  earth  are  in  the  mind  of  Jesus 
Christ.”1 

So  he — the  bishop  from  Syria — comes  to  the  West  with 
a  consciousness  of  his  office.  The  bishops  from  other 
churches  come  to  meet  him  as  a  brother-bishop.  He 
declines  the  authority  of  an  Apostle  and  contrasts  himself 
with  them,  but  he  exhorts  not  only  the  different  churches 
but  also  his  brother-bishop  Polycarp  in  no  uncertain  terms. 
The  impression  that  we  get  is  that  in  the  period  that  has 
elapsed  since  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  death  of  the 
Apostles  the  bishops  have  taken  their  place  as  those  through 
whom  in  a  particular  way  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  the 
intercourse  of  the  churches  with  one  another  is  maintained. 

Our  other  evidence  points  in  the  same  direction — the 
letter  of  Clement  of  Rome,  the  letter  of  Polycarp,  the  visit 
of  Polycarp  to  Anicetus,  the  letters  of  Dionysius  of  Corinth, 
the  travels  of  Abercius.  During  the  second  century  we 
begin  to  find  organized  Church  Councils,  and  as  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  Church  proceeds  the  Council  becomes  more 
important.  The  Catholic  claims  and  position  of  the  bishop 
are  presented  to  us  most  conspicuously  in  the  letters  of 
Cyprian,  who  both  exalted  the  office  of  the  bishop  and 

1  Ignatius,  Ad  Ephes.  3.  Professor  Bartlet  ( Towards  Reunion, 
p.  210,  and  in  other  places)  is  very  anxious  to  make  out  that  the 
Ignatian  episcopate  was  really  congregational.  There  seems  to  be 
really  no  ground  at  all  for  this  theory,  for — 

(1)  It  is  quite  unreasonable  to  think  that  in  a  large  city  like 
Ephesus,  for  example,  there  was  only  one  congregation.  Even  in 
Apostolic  times  there  were  churches  in  different  houses. 

(2)  The  relation  of  the  ministry  to  the  church  is  fundamentally 
different  from  anything  we  associate  now  with  congregational  polity. 

(3)  The  bishop  is  quite  clearly  looked  upon  as  an  officer  not  merely 
of  the  congregation  but  of  the  whole  church. 

(4)  The  whole  purpose  of  Ignatius’  instructions  was  to  prevent 
Congregationalism  (cf.  Ign.,  Ad  Magn.  4,  7). 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  EPISCOPACY 


105 


extended  its  practical  influence  by  organizing  the  Church 
Council.  Unity,  he  claims,  it  is  the  special  function  of 
the  bishops  to  maintain,  by  exhibiting  a  single  undivided 
episcopate.  The  end  of  this  development  is  the  (Ecumenical 
Council  of  Nicaea. 

Now  it  has  been  maintained  that  this  process  of  growth  . 
really  meant  that  a  church  originally  congregational  in  its 
character  gradually  developed  into  Catholicism.  We  start, 
it  is  maintained,  with  the  small  local  community,  a  con¬ 
gregation;  by  a  process  of  development,  or,  as  it  is  suggested, 
degeneration,  from  this  gradually  came  the  later  conception 
of  the  one  Church.  This  does  not  seem  to  me  rightly  to 
describe  the  historical  process.  We  have  seen  how  the 
whole  idea  of  the  Church  starts  from  unity,  and  that  con¬ 
ception,  it  must  be  remembered,  lies  behind  all  the  later 
history.  What  really  happened  was  that  by  a  process 
which  was  unobtrusive  and  unconscious  the  expression  of 
the  corporate  consciousness  of  the  Church  gradually  passed 
from  the  Apostles  and  prophets  and  other  missionary 
ministers  to  the  bishops.  This  change,  like  all  the  others, 
took  place  during  the  years  following  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
just,  in  fact,  during  that  period  of  which  we  have  so  little 
knowledge.  What  happened  was  not  that  a  Congregational 
Church  grew  into  the  Catholic  Church,  but  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  had  existed  from  the  beginning  in  idea  and 
had  expressed  itself  first  mainly  through  the  enthusiasm 
of  its  missionary  life,  gradually  came  to  express  itself  in 
a  manner  which  harmonized  with  the  new  conditions  and 
developed  a  framework  suitable  to  its  life. 

I  have  tried  to  suggest  the  way  in  which  Episcopacy,  as 
we  know  it  in  the  Christian  Church,  came  into  being.  I 
have  suggested  that  it  was  the  creation  of  the  Church 
developing  those  principles  of  ministry  and  life  which  it 
had  inherited  from  the  Apostles.  It  had  its  origin  in  the 
Apostolic  Church;  it  represents  a  continuous  development 
from  Apostolic  times;  but  we  cannot  claim  that  it  has 
Apostolic  authority  behind  it.  We  must  recognize  that 
we  cannot  claim  such  authority  for  any  Christian  institution 
or  teaching  unless  there  is  the  clear  and  certain  evidence  of 
documents  coming  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  and  we 


io6 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


cannot  believe  that  our  Lord  could  have  intended  that 
any  institution  should  be  looked  upon  as  essential  to  the 
existence  of  the  Church  without  giving  explicit  and  certain 
directions.  He  instituted  the  Eucharist  and  gave  a  com¬ 
mand  about  Baptism,  but  He  did  not  directly  institute  or 
command  Episcopacy.  We  cannot  claim  that  it  is  essential 
to  the  Church.  Equally  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no  Apostolic 
ordinance  to  be  quoted  in  its  support.  There  is  no  adequate 
or  sufficient  evidence  that  it  was  instituted  by  Apostles. 
We  must  recognize  that  the  authority  that  can  be  claimed 
for  it  is  so  far  limited. 

But  having  said  that,  we  can  justly  and  rightly  maintain 
that  it  comes  to  us  with  the  authority  of  the  Church  of 
the  earliest  and  all  subsequent  centuries;  that  it  is  the 
direct  and  natural  development  of  Apostolic  institutions 
and  the  principles  laid  down  by  our  Lord;  that  the  Church, 
as  a  living  organism,  built  up  for  itself  a  strong  and  effective 
instrument  by  which  it  might  fulfil  its  mission,  and  main¬ 
tain  and  pass  on  to  future  generations  the  divine  word 
and  life  with  which  it  had  been  entrusted. 

II 

The  history  of  the  Episcopate  describes  the  origin  of  that 
form  and  expression  of  the  Christian  Church  which  came 
into  being  during  the  second  century,  by  the  end  of  that 
century  was  firmly  established,  which  preserved  its  unity 
and  solidarity  until  the  schism  between  the  East  and  West, 
and  forms  the  basis  of  the  organization  of  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  Christian  Church  at  the  present  day.  There 
has  been  change  and  growth;  a  knowledge  of  history  reveals 
to  us  great  variety  of  opinion  and  many  changes  of  policy; 
but  the  fundamental  principles  remained  unaltered.  It  is 
this  conception  of  the  theory  and  organization  of  the  Church, 
generally  designated  by  the  term  Catholic,  that  we  have 
now  to  study. 

Let  us  examine  first  the  meaning  of  this  word.  Originally 
it  means  universal,  and  in  that  sense  it  is  used  in  a  well- 
known  passage  of  the  letters  of  Ignatius:  “Wherever  the 
bishop  shall  appear,  there  let  the  people:  even  as  where 


THE  WORD  “  CATHOLIC  ” 


107 

Jesus  may  be,  there  is  the  Catholic  Church  ”;1  and  that  is 
the  meaning  that  it  has  in  the  Creed.  As  such  it  presents 
to  us  a  fundamental  idea  of  the  Church  as  founded  by  our 
Lord  and  preached  by  the  Apostles.  The  fundamental 
characteristic  of  the  new  Israel  was  that  while  the  old 
Israel  was  confined  to  one  race,  the  new  Israel  was  to  be 
of  every  nation  and  people,  universal  throughout  the 
world.  “  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  Gospel.” 
The  barrier  between  Jew  and  Gentile  had  been  broken 
down  and  the  universal  society  thus  created.  The  word 
“  Catholic”  in  this  sense  represents  just  that  conception  of 
the  Church  which  we  find  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

But  gradually  and  naturally  other  ideas  came  to  be 
added,  as  it  was  necessary  to  distinguish  this  one  society 
from  the  imperfect  societies  which  were  separated  from  it. 
The  one  Church  was  universal,  the  other  societies  were 
local  and  particular.  To  the  idea  of  universality  there  came 
to  be  added  the  conceptions  of  orthodoxy  and  unity.  The 
one  Church  taught  everywhere  the  same  doctrine;  the 
heretics  had  many  different  creeds.  So  the  note  of  the 
Church  was  its  oneness  and  what  was  held  to  be  its  ortho¬ 
doxy.  These  further  ideas  of  orthodoxy  and  unity  are  well 
brought  out  in  the  definition  given  us  by  Cyril  of  J  erusalem : 

“It  is  called  Catholic  because  it  stands  over  the 
whole  world,  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to  the  other; 
and  because  it  teaches  universally  and  completely  one 
and  all  the  doctrines  which  ought  to  come  to  men’s 
knowledge,  concerning  things  visible  and  invisible, 
things  on  earth  and  things  in  heaven;  and  because  it 
brings  into  subjection  to  godliness  the  whole  race  of 
mankind,  governors  and  governed,  learned  and  un¬ 
learned;  and  because  it  is  the  universal  physician  and 
healer  of  every  kind  of  sin,  whether  committed  by  the 
soul  or  the  body,  and  possesses  in  itself  every  form  of 
virtue  which  is  named  in  deed  and  in  word  and  in 
every  kind  of  spiritual  gift.”2 

1  Ign.,  Ad  Smyrn.  8.  The  ablest  and] fullest  discussion  on  the 
history  of  the  word  will  be  found  in  the  note  of  Lightfoot,  ad  loc., 
and  in  the  first  volume  of  his  edition,  p.  398.  There  are  also  some 
interesting  remarks  in  Catholicity  by  T.  A.  Lacey,  M.A.,  chap,  i., 
"  The  Word  and  the  Idea.” 

2  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catech.,  xviii.  23. 


io8 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


What,  then,  was  this  Catholic  Church  ?  The  important 
thing  for  us  to  notice  is  that  during  all  this  period  there 
was  one  definite  visible  society  which  could  rightly  claim 
this  name,  and  that  there  was  no  apparent  rival,  no  other 
body  which  could  compete  with  it.  The  Church  which 
claimed  to  be  such  was  the  Universal  Church,  and  a  person 
looking  at  it  from  outside  would  have  little  difficulty  in 
identifying  it.  It  is  this  obvious  fact  that  coloured  all  the 
definitions  and  conceptions  of  the  time,  and  made  the 
problems  connected  with  it  appear  easier  of  solution  then 
than  they  do  now,  and  than  they  really  were  even  then. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  this  Church  was  a  visible  society, 
nor  is  there  any  evidence  that  the  conception  of  an  invisible 
Church,  as  it  was  conceived  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation, 
then  existed.  There  was,  indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
theologians  influenced  by  the  predominant  Platonic  philo¬ 
sophy  a  heavenly  Church  of  which  this  earthly  Church  was 
an  imperfect  copy,  with  the  natural  imperfections  of  earthly 
things.  They  did  not,  however,  know  of  any  earthly 
society  save  the  one  visible  body.  Entrance  into  this 
society  was  by  Baptism,  and,  although  there  was  a  system 
of  discipline,  it  contained  both  good  and  evil.  The  Church 
was  the  home  of  the  Spirit.  “  Where  is  the  Church  there 
is  the  Spirit  of  God,”  said  Irenaeus,  “  and  where  the  Spirit 
of  God,  there  is  the  Church.”1  This  meant  not  that  there 
was  a  spiritual  Church  apart  from  the  visible  Church,  but 
that  in  the  Church  only  could  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  be 
received.  It  was  on  this  principle  that  the  strongest 
arguments  of  Cyprian  in  the  rebaptism  controversy2  and 
those  used  against  Augustine  in  the  Donatist  controversy 
were  based,  because,  as  appears,  the  position  was  one 
universally  accepted.  Outside  the  Church  there  were  no 
gifts  of  the  Spirit. 

1  Irenaeus,  Haer.,  III.  xxxviii.  i,  “  Ubi  enim  Ecclesia  ibi  et 
Spiritus  Dei;  et  ubi  Spiritus  Dei,  illic  Ecclesia,  et  omnis  gratia: 
Spiritus  autem  veritas.” 

2  Cyprian,  Ep.  lxix.  io,  “  Qui  quoniam  pertinaces  alias  et  in- 
dociles  uel  hoc  tamen  confitentur  quod  uniuersi  siue  haeretici  siue 
schismatici  non  habeant  spiritum  sanctum,  et  ideo  baptizare  quidem 
possint,  dare  autem  spiritum  sanctum  non  possint,  in  hoc  ipso  a 
nobis  tenentur  ut  ostendamus  nec  baptizare  omnino  eos  posse  qui 
non  habeant  spiritum  sanctum.” 


THE  HOME  OF  SALVATION 


109 

As  the  home  of  the  Spirit,  the  Church  was  the  source  of 
all  spiritual  gifts.  She  was  the  mother  who  fed  her  children 
with  spiritual  food : 

“  O  wonderful  mystery,”  says  Clement  of  Alex¬ 
andria,  “  one  is  the  Father  of  all,  one  is  the  Word  of 
all,  one  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  same  everywhere;  one  too 
she  who  is  alone  the  Virgin  Mother,  for  this  I  love 
to  call  the  Church,  a  mother  with  no  milk  of  her  own, 
never  a  wife,  alike  virgin  and  mother,  a  virgin  un¬ 
spotted,  a  mother  beloved,  calling  to  her  her  own 
sons,  and  feeding  them  with  the  holy  and  nourishing 
milk  of  the  word.”1 

And  as  the  Church  was  the  home  of  the  Spirit,  so  it  was 
the  home  of  salvation.  “  There  can  be  no  salvation  for 
anyone  except  in  the  Church,”  said  Cyprian.  “  He  is  not 
a  Christian  who  is  not  in  the  Church  of  Christ.”  “  No  one 
can  have  God  as  his  Father,  that  has  not  first  the  Church  as 
his  mother.”2  Now,  undoubtedly,  Cyprian  stated  his  belief 
in  a  logical  and  trenchant  fashion  from  which  some  even  then 
might  shrink.  Many,  for  example,  would  not  carry  their 
principles  so  far  as  to  deny  the  possibility  of  salvation  to 
a  heretic  who  had  suffered  martyrdom,  because  there  was 
no  salvation  except  in  the  Church.3  Such  beliefs  as  the 
baptism  by  blood  were  the  natural  efforts  of  a  humane 
instinct  to  escape  from  a  too  severe  logic.4  There  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt  that  the  normal  belief  to  which 
Cyprian  could  appeal  was  that  it  was  only  for  those  who 
were  in  the  Church  that  there  was  salvation,  and  that  all 
outside  would  undoubtedly  perish.  It  was  on  this  belief 
that  the  discipline  of  the  Church  was  built  up.  If  ex- 
communication  meant  (as  it  seemed  at  any  rate  to  most 
people  to  mean)  cutting  off  from  the  Church,  and  that 

1  Clem.  Alex.,  Paedagogus,  vi.  42. 

2  Cyprian,  Ep.  iv.  4,  “  Cum  domus  Dei  una  sit  et  nemini  salus 
esse  nisi  in  ecclesia  possit”;  Ep.  lv.  24,  “  Christianus  non  est  qui 
in  Christi  ecclesia  non  est”;  Ep.  lxxiv.  7,  “  Ut  habere  quis  possit 
Deum  patrem,  habeat  ante  ecclesiam  matrem.” 

3  Cyprian,  Ep.  lxxiii.  21,  “  Quod  si  haeretico  nec  baptisma  publicae 
confessionis  et  sanguinis  proficere  ad  salutem  potest,  quia  salus 
extra  ecclesiam  non  est.” 

4  Cyprian,  Ep.  lvii.  4,  “  Qui  martyrium  tollit  sanguine  suo 
baptizatur;  Ep.  lxxiii.  22.  This  baptism  by  blood  is  said  to  be 
the  other  baptism  with  which  our  Lord  said  He  had  to  be  baptized. 


no 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


meant  to  be  deprived  of  salvation,  then  it  was  natural  to 
be  ready  to  undergo  the  most  severe  penance  in  order  to  be 
restored  to  communion.  For  a  similar  reason  the  absolution 
given  by  those  holy  men,  the  confessors,  was  eagerly  sought 
after.  The  spiritual  power  of  the  Church  cannot  be  realized 
unless  we  understand  that  the  fundamental  conception  was 
that  the  Church  was  the  exclusive  home  of  salvation. 

W  The  conception  of  the  Church  as  a  great  world-embracing 
society,  the  source  of  all  spiritual  blessings,  the  source  of 
salvation,  stirred  the  imagination  of  the  Christian  theologian : 

“  God  hath  set  in  the  Church,”  said  Cyril  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  “  every  sort  of  virtue,  I  mean  wisdom  and 
understanding,  temperance  and  justice,  mercy  and 
lovingkindness,  and  patience  unconquerable  in  perse¬ 
cutions.  She,  by  the  armour  of  righteousness  on  the 
right  hand  and  on  the  left,  by  honour  and  dishonour, 
in  former  days  amid  persecutions  and  tribulations, 
crowned  the  holy  martyrs  with  the  varied  and  blooming 
chaplets  of  patience,  and  now  in  times  of  peace  by 
God’s  grace  receives  her  due  honour  from  kings  and 
those  who  are  in  high  places,  and  from  every  sort  and 
kindred  of  men.  And  while  the  kings  of  particular 
nations  have  bounds  set  to  their  authority,  the  Holy 
Church  Catholic  alone  extends  her  power  without 
limit  over  the  whole  world:  for  God,  as  it  is  written, 
hath  made  her  border  peace.”1 

Such,  in  theory,  was  the  Catholic  Church.  But  in 
practice  two  questions  of  great  difficulty  arose  early  as 
they  were  bound  to  do.  How  could  you  harmonize  this 
teaching  with  actual  facts  ?  What  was  to  be  said  about 
those  within  the  Church  who  did  not  live  a  Christian  life  ? 
And,  secondly,  what  was  the  relation  of  the  Church  to 
those  who,  while  professing  the  name  of  Christ,  were 
separated  from  His  body  ? 

The  first  question  was  one  intimately  connected  with 
the  doctrine  of  penance.2  The  Church  was  holy.  Its 

1  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catech.,  xviii.  27. 

2  On  the  history  of  the  doctrine  of  penance  see  Batiffol,  “  Les 
Origines  de  la  penitence,”  in  Etudes  d’histoire  et  de  theologie  positive 
(Paris,  1002),  i.,  pp.  43-222. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  PENANCE 


iri 


members  were  the  Saints.  Did  this  mean  that  only  those 
who  were  really  such  should  be  allowed  to  remain  within 
its  communion  ?  At  first,  as  was  natural  when  the  Church 
was  a  small  and  exclusive  body  militant  against  the  world, 
the  discipline  was  severe.  All  sins  had  been  washed  away 
in  Baptism,  but  there  were  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
which  seemed  to  imply  that  there  was  no  forgiveness  for 
heinous  sins  committed  after  Baptism.  So  it  came  to  be 
generally,  though  not  universally,  held  that  for  murder, 
adultery,  and  apostasy,  no  forgiveness  on  earth  was  possible. 
For  lesser  sins  penance  no  doubt  was  severe.  Although 
a  book  like  the  Shepherd  of  Hernias  pleaded  for  greater 
recognition  of  the  Divine  mercy,  the  policy  of  the  Church 
remained  generally  strict  throughout  the  second  century. 
It  is  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  in  the  Church  of 
Rome  that  we  find  less  severity.  A  famous  edict  was  issued 
by  the  Bishop  Callistus  which  roused  the  anger  of  Hippo- 
lytus  (was  he  a  rival  bishop  ?)  and  of  Tertullian,  whose 
fierce  African  temperament  made  him  seek  in  Montanism 
the  pure  society  which  he  failed  to  find  in  the  Catholic 
Church.  Callistus  proposed  to  allow  those  guilty  of  adultery 
to  be  restored  to  communion  after  public  penance 
Tertullian  denies  this  right  to  the  carnal  church  of  bishops. 
The  only  Church  which  can  forgive  sins  is  the  Church  of 
the  Spirit  acting  through  a  spiritual  man,  not  the  Church 
which  consists  merely  of  a  crowd  of  bishops.  "  For  the 
right  and  arbitrament  is  of  the  Lord  and  not  of  the  servant, 
of  God  himself  and  not  of  the  priest.”1  The  language  of 
Tertullian  is  tha,t  of  the  Puritan  as  exhibited  in  all  ages 
throughout  Church  history,  but  it  must  be  noted  that  the 
Church  which  he  desired  was  not,  any  more  than  the  Catholic 
Church,  an  invisible  society,  but  a  visible  community 
governed  by  truly  spiritual  men  and  free  from  any  con¬ 
tamination  of  evil. 

Thirty  years  later  the  same  controversy  broke  out  in  a 
more  serious  form.  The  tendency  during  these  years  had 
been  towards  greater  charity  or  laxity.  It  had  become 

1  Tertullian,  De  Pudicitia,  xxi.,  “Et  ideo  ecclesia  quidem  delicta 
donabit,  sed  ecclesia  spiritus  per  spiritalem  hominem,  non  ecclesia 
numerus  episcoporum.  Domini  enim,  non  famuli  est  ius  et  arbi- 
trium;  Dei  ipsius,  non  sacerdotis.” 


112 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


recognized  that  even  in  the  case  of  the  most  heinous  sins, 
the  Church  could  exercise  through  the  bishop  the  power 
of  reconciliation.  But  in  the  Decian  persecution  a  new 
crisis  arose.  This  had  been  an  organized  attack  on  Chris¬ 
tianity.  It  had  had  considerable  success.  Many  had 
apostatized  or  had  evaded  sacrifice  by  bribery.  What  in 
the  future  would  be  their  position  in  the  Church  ?  It 
would  be  beside  our  purpose  to  pursue  the  long  and  intricate 
controversy  which  sprang  up.  The  important  point  for 
us  is  that  against  the  statesmanlike  policy  organized  by 
Cyprian  and  Cornelius,  there  arose  the  schism  of  Novatian. 
He  and  his  party  claimed  to  be  the  pure,  the  Cathari ,  who 
preserved  the  wholesome  tradition  of  early  days  and  would 
have  no  compromise  with  evil.  But  except  on  this  point 
their  theory  of  the  Church  was  exactly  the  same  as  that 
of  their  opponents.  Only  they  claimed  that  they,  and  not 
the  conventicle  which  admitted  into  its  fold  adulterers  and 
murderers  and  apostates,  formed  the  true  Church.  The 
same  situation  recurred  again  at  the  time  of  the  Donatist 
schism  of  Africa.  To  this  we  shall  come  later;  meanwhile 
it  is  sufficient  to  emphasize  that  the  position  had  become 
accepted  that  the  Christian  Church  was  a  visible  society 
in  which  good  and  evil  were  mingled  together  until  the 
final  sifting,  and  that,  whatever  penance  for  the  soul’s 
health  might  be  imposed,  none  could  permanently  be 
excluded  except  those  who  pertinaciously  refused  to  submit 
to  its  authority. 

It  was  largely  out  of  these  controversies  and  the  schisms 
that  resulted  from  them  that  the  second  controversy  which 
concerned  the  nature  of  the  Church  arose.  What  was  the 
relation  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  heretics  and  schismatics  P1 
Here,  again,  in  the  earlier  period  the  rule  seems  to  have 
been  strict  and  rigid,  at  any  rate  in  many  parts  of  Christen¬ 
dom.  Not  perhaps  universally,  but  generally  the  rule 
prevailed  that  heretical  baptism  was  null  and  void.  One 
who  was  baptized  by  heretics  was  not  really  baptized  at 
all,  and  therefore  he  must,  if  he  entered  the  Church,  receive 

1  This  question  is  traced  at  length  by  Mr.  C.  H.  Turner  in  The 
Early  History  of  the  Church  and  Ministry,  with  special  reference  to 
reordination. 


NOVATIANISM 


m 

the  rite  of  the  Church.  And  the  same  principles  applied 
to  all  other  sacraments.  Heresy  in  the  second  century 
generally  meant  Gnosticism,  and  the  difference  from  the 
Catholic  Church  was  so  great  that  the  rule  might  seem 
reasonable.  Many  Gnostics  were  hardly  Christians  at  all. 
Their  beliefs  were  extravagant  and  fantastic,  their  morals 
doubtful,  and  their  ordinances  irregular.  Tertullian  in  his 
early  years  was  very  severe  on  the  orders  of  heretics. 
Their  ordinations  are  rash,  fickle,  inconstant.  Now  it  is 
neophytes,  now  it  is  men  engaged  in  worldly  affairs,  now  it 
is  apostates  from  ourselves  that  they  appoint.  One  man  is 
bishop  one  day,  one  another.  A  deacon  to-day  is  a  reader 
to-morrow.  A  presbyter  to-day  a  layman  to-morrow. 
The  laity  even  are  allowed  to  perform  sacerdotal  functions.1 
So  the  strictness  of  the  Church  in  the  second  century  was 
natural  enough. 

But  it  became  very  different  when  the  heretics  or  schis¬ 
matics  were  those  who  had  separated  from  the  Church, 
and  perhaps  only  on  a  question  of  order.  Take  the  Nova- 
tians.  They  held  exactly  the  same  faith.  Novatian’s 
Treatise  on  the  Trinity  represented  the  most  advanced 
orthodoxy  of  the  time.  They  had  (as  we  should  say)  the 
same  orders.  Novatian  was  ordained  by  three  Catholic 
bishops  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church.  They  had 
the  same  sacraments  administered  in  the  same  way.  They 
had  the  same  Christian  life.2  How  was  it  possible  to  say 
that  they  were  not  baptized  Christians,  and  how  could  it 
be  right  to  repeat  their  baptism  ?  It  was  on  this  question 
that  the  controversy  began  during  the  third  century. 

1  Tertullian,  De  Praes.  Haer.,  xli.,  “  Ordinationes  eorum  temerariae, 
leves,  inconstantes.  Nunc  neophytos  conlocant,  nunc  saeculo 
obstrictos,  nunc  apostatas  nostros,  ut  gloria  eos  obligent,  quia 
veritate  non  possunt.  Nusquam  facilius  proficitur  quam  in  castris 
rebellium,  ubi  ipsum  esse  illic  promereri  est.  Itaque  alius  hodie 
episcopus,  eras  alius,  hodie  diaconus  qui  eras  lector,  hodie  presbyter 
qui  eras  laicus.  Nam  et  laicis  sacerdotalia  munera  iniungunt.” 

2  This  is  well  put  by  Cyprian,  who  always  states  his  opponents’ 
arguments  with  fairness  and  admirable  lucidity.  Cyp.,  Ep.  lxix.  7, 

“  Quod  si  aliquis  illud  opponit  ut  dicat  eandem  Nouatianum  legem 
tenere  quam  catholica  ecclesia  teneat,  eodem  symbolo  quo  et  nos 
baptizare,  eundem  nosse  Deum  patrem,  eundem  filium  Christum, 
eundem  spiritum  sanctum,  ac  propter  hoc  usurpare  eum  potestatem, 
baptizandi  posse  quod  uideatur  interrogatione  baptismi  a  nobis  non 
discrepare.” 


8 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


114 

Stephen,  Bishop  of  Rome,  claiming,  although  with  doubtful 
authority,  that  he  was  acting  in  accordance  with  Apostolic 
custom,  admitted  the  baptism  of  all  those  who  had  been 
baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity.  Cyprian  took  the 
opposite  view.  This  controversy  was  settled,  at  any  rate 
for  most  theologians  in  the  West,  by  the  Synod  of  Arles, 
which  admitted  such  baptism.  But  a  further  and  more 
difficult  question  arose  concerning  orders.  This  was  con¬ 
sidered  by  Augustine  in  reference  to  the  Donatists  and 
long  divided  the  Church.1 

This  question  will  demand  careful  attention;  it  is,  in 
fact,  a  fundamental  question  of  these  lectures.  For  the 
present  it  is  sufficient  to  note  that  that  theory  of  the  Church 
which  identified  it  with  the  one  visible  body  which  was 
called  the  Catholic  Church,  and  with  that  alone,  inevitably 
led  to  a  position  of  extreme  difficulty,  and  caused  much 
inconsistency  and  perplexity. 

Ill 

This  Christian  society,  the  Church,  was  bound  together 
by  certain  great  principles  of  life  and  belief.  It  had  a 
common  faith,  contained  in  the  Scriptures,  which  it  had 
inherited  and  formulated  in  a  creed.  This  creed  was  at 
first  different  in  its  form  in  each  locality,  although  always 
expressing  the  same  faith;  ultimately,  as  the  corporate 
expression  of  the  Church’s  life  grew  more  developed,  and 
as  the  need  of  guarding  against  false  teaching  appeared  to 
be  more  necessary,  it  became  one  for  the  whole  Church.  The 
Church  enjoined  on  all  a  lofty  moral  code  based  on  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  its  Founder.  It  had  an  ordered  sacramental  system, 
adapted  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  its  people,  which  might 
bring  spiritual  help  to  all  by  a  regular  rule  of  devotion 
and  the  divine  gifts  that  it  administered.  It  had  a  care¬ 
fully  elaborated  discipline  which  might  stir  up  those  that 
had  fallen,  but  allowed  the  restoration  of  their  privileges 

1  See,  besides  Mr.  Turner’s  essay  already  referred  to,  the  disserta¬ 
tion  in  Morinus,  De  Sacris  Ecclesiae  Ordinationibus,  Exercitatio  V., 
“  De  Sacrarum  Ordinationum  Iteratione  and  Les  Re  or  dinations, 
Etude  sur  le  sacrement  de  Vordre,  par  l’abbe  Louis  Saltet  (Paris, 
Libraire  Victor  Lecoffre,  1907]. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY 


IJ5 

on  a  true  repentance.  The  society  was  administered,  its 
teaching  office  exercised,  its  sacraments  performed,  its 
discipline  imposed,  its  unity  preserved,  by  a  ministry  to 
which  it  gave  a  high  authority  and  a  lofty  spiritual  position. 
All  its  functions  were  spiritual,  and  until  the  secular  power 
began  to  intervene  the  authority,  the  discipline,  and  the 
rules  of  the  Church  were  entirely  dependent  on  spiritual 
sanctions.  The  only  power  it  had  was  dependent  upon 
the  right  of  excommunication,  and  that  power  was  effective 
only  among  those  to  whom  it  was  a  deprivation  to  be  ex¬ 
cluded  from  the  fellowship  and  Sacraments  of  the  Church. 
It  depended  upon  personal  belief. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  examine  the  history  of  these  various 
lines  of  development;  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  study  with 
some  care  the  Christian  ministry  as  it  is  presented  to  us, 
for  it  formed  the  framework  on  which  all  the  activities  of 
the  Church  depended,  and  all  questions  of  reunion  are 
intimately  dependent  on  theories  of  the  ministry. 

The  Christian  ministry  was  held  to  consist  in  its  essence  of 
three  orders — bishops,  priests,  and  deacons.  To  these  came 
to  be  added  the  further  orders,  subdeacons,  acolytes,  readers, 
exorcists,  doorkeepers,  and  sometimes  singers;  but  there 
was  greater  variety  as  to  the  presence  of  these  in  the  different 
local  churches,  and  they  were  not  looked  upon  as  essential 
to  a  Christian  church.  On  the  other  hand,  it  early  came 
to  be  considered  that  the  three  orders  of  bishops,  priests, 
and  deacons  were  essential.  Although  the  language  varies, 
and  sometimes  stress  is  laid  on  the  bishop  alone,  more 
often  it  is  on  the  three  orders  together.  Both  these  state¬ 
ments  meet  us  as  early  as  Ignatius:  “  It  is  good,”  he  writes, 
"  to  recognize  God  and  the  bishop.  He  that  honoureth 
the  bishop  is  honoured  of  God;  he  that  doeth  aught  with¬ 
out  the  knowledge  of  the  bishop  rendereth  service  to  the 
devil.”1  More  commonly  it  is  the  three  orders  of  the 
ministry  together  who  are  spoken  of  with  reverence.  “  In 
like  manner  let  all  men  respect  the  deacons  as  J esus  Christ, 
even  as  they  should  respect  the  bishop  as  being  a  type  of 
the  Father  and  the  presbyters  as  the  council  of  God  and 
as  the  college  of  Apostles.  Apart  from  these  there  is  not 

1  Ign.,  Ad  Smyr.  9. 


ii6 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


even  the  name  of  a  church.”1  If  we  turn  to  another  strong 
supporter  of  Episcopacy  more  than  a  century  later  we  have 
the  same  dual  usage.  On  the  one  hand:  “  The  bishop  is 
in  the  Church  and  the  Church  in  the  bishop.  He  who  is 
not  with  the  bishop  is  not  in  the  Church”;2  but  else¬ 
where:  “The  Church  is  constituted  in  the  bishop  and  the 
clergy  and  the  faithful  laity.”3  Ignatius  and  Cyprian  are 
both  well-known  supporters  of  Episcopacy  and  Church 
order,  and  we  naturally  ask  whether  their  conception  is 
modified  by  others.  It  is  indeed  undoubtedly  true  that 
there  are  different  degrees  of  strength  in  the  language  used 
by  different  writers,  and  considerable  variety  in  the  stress 
laid  on  the  ministry.  There  are  some  who  take  more 
interest  in  such  things  and  some  less ;  but  I  doubt  whether 
there  was  anyone  after  a  quite  early  period  who  had  any 
other  conception  of  the  ministry  or  Church;  and  this  is 
true  not  only  of  churchmen,  but  also  of  heretics.  After  the 
time  of  Montanism  there  is  no  break  in  the  custom,  although 
as  much  as  in  our  own  day  there  were  some  who  liked 
bishops  and  others  who  did  not.  But  the  recognition  is 
universal.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  for  example,  obviously 
does  not  take  much  interest  in  such  things.  He  was  a 
philosopher  with  a  tendency  to  mysticism,  but  he  con¬ 
siders  that  the  grades  of  office  in  the  Church,  the  bishops, 
presbyters,  and  deacons,  are  imitators  of  the  angelic  glory 
and  of  that  economy  which  awaits  those  who  have  lived 
in  righteousness;  and  he  can  conceive  nothing  better  to 
say  of  the  Gnostic — his  ideal  Christian — than  that  he  is  a 
true  presbyter  and  will  in  the  future  life  receive  that  grade.4 

It  has  been  maintained  that  instances  may  be  quoted 

1  Ign.,  Ad.  Trail.  3,  'Opiouog  rrdvrEg  tVTptTTfnQwGav  rovg  diaicovovg  cog 

’Itjaovv  Xpicrrov,  log  icai  tov  lirLmcoTrov  ovra  tvttov  tov  Tlarpog,  rovg  5t  7r pE<rfiv- 
rkpovg  (bg  avveSpiov  Qeov,  iccii  ibg  ovvbEGpov  airoaroXcov.  rovruv  EKKXrjcria 

ov  koXeItcu. 

2  Cyp.,  Ep.  lxvi.  8,  “  Unde  scire  debes  episcopum  in  ecclesia  esse 
et  ecclesiam  in  episcopo  et  si  qui  cum  episcopo  non  sit  in  ecclesia 
non  esse.” 

3  Cyp.,  Ep.  xxxiii.  1,  ”  Quando  ecclesia  in  episcopo  et  clero  et 
in  omnibus  stantibus  sit  constituta.” 

4  Clem.,  Strom.,  VI.  xiii.  106,  “  That  man  is  a  true  presbyter  of 
the  Church  and  he  is  a  true  deacon  of  the  counsel  of  God,  who 
teaches  and  carries  out  the  words  of  the  Lord,  not  ordained  of  men 
nor  reputed  righteous  because  he  is  a  presbyter,  but  enrolled  in 
the  presbytery  because  he  is  righteous,  and  even  if  here  on  earth 


THE  PRESBYTERATE 


117 

which  prove  that  this  constitutional  form  was  not  uni¬ 
versally  accepted.  It  is  true  indeed  that  Tertullian  as  a 
Montanist  was  an  anti-episcopalian.  Montanism  repre¬ 
sented  undoubtedly  a  protest  against  organized  Christianity, 
but  it  rather  witnesses  to  the  extent  to  which  the  organiza¬ 
tion  prevailed.  Any  other  attempt  to  find  a  different  form 
of  organization  appears  to  be  based  on  misconceptions. 
The  opposition  against  Cyprian  was  organized  by  presbyters, 
but  it  was  not  presbyterian.  The  strong  assertion  of  the 
rights  of  his  order  made  by  Jerome  was  based  historically 
on  the  claim  to  presbyterian  ordination  in  Alexandria 
— a  very  doubtful  support.  It  represented  the  growing 
independence  of  the  individual  presbyter  which  was  the 
natural  result  of  the  more  numerous  churches,  of  the  in¬ 
creased  number  of  the  faithful,  and  of  the  larger  dioceses. 
So  far  as  regards  the  position  of  the  bishop  there  is  really 
no  fundamental  change  from  the  time  of  Ignatius.  The 
gradual  suppression  of  the  presbyterate  is  a  pure  fiction, 
and  as  the  Church  grew  the  tendency  was  for  the  individual 
presbyter  to  attain  greater  freedom  of  independent  action.* 1 2 

he  is  not  honoured  with  the  chief  seat,  he  will  sit  on  the  four  and 
twenty  thrones  judging  the  people,  as  says  John  in  the  Apocalypse.” 

(107)  “  Since  the  orders  in  the  Church  on  earth  of  bishops,  priests, 
and  deacons  are,  I  think,  imitations  of  the  angelical  glory  and  of 
that  dispensation  which  the  scriptures  say  awaits  those  who  have 
lived  in  the  steps  of  the  Apostles  in  the  perfecting  of  righteousness 
according  to  the  Gospel.” 

It  may  be  noted  that  although  Clement  has  the  natural  contempt 
which  philosophers  always  exhibit  towards  the  actual  clergy,  it 
implies  no  depreciation  of  the  established  hierarchy  or  any  con¬ 
ception  that  there  could  be  any  different  form  of  church  government. 

1  That  the  development  was  from  one  point  of  view  that  of  the 
presbyterate  is  brought  out  by  Mr.  Turner  in  his  chapter  On  the 
Organization  of  the  Church  in  the  Cambridge  Medieval  History 
(vol.  i.,  chap.  vi.).  The  change  was  not  quite  a  simple  one: 

(1)  The  original  governing  body  of  each  local  church  was  un¬ 
doubtedly  the  college  of  presbyters  with  a  presiding  bishop.  So 
far  as  government  goes  the  tendency  was  for  the  bishop  to  become 
more  important. 

(2)  In  the  earlier  period,  when  the  churches  were  small,  the 
bishop  seems  to  have  conducted  all  liturgical  services,  and  the 
right  of  others  to  perform  any  such  function  depended  simply  on 
delegation  from  himself.  When  the  churches  became  larger  the 
presbyter  acquired  as  inherent  in  his  office  all  liturgical  functions 
except  laying  on  of  hands  in  ordination  or  confirmation. 

The  college  of  presbyters  decreased  in  importance,  but  the  status 
of  the  individual  presbyter  became  higher. 


n8 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


The  next  point  that  demands  our  attention  is  the  con¬ 
stitutional  position  of  a  bishop.  What  was  the  extent 
and  limitation  of  his  power  ?  Our  fullest  information 
about  episcopal  activity  comes  from  Cyprian,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  he  exercised  his  office  somewhat 
autocratically.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  a  lawyer, 
he  would  care  for  constitutional  forms,  and  observe  them; 
and  we  find  that  he  is  always  most  particular  to  pay  at 
any  rate  verbal  homage  to  the  rights  of  others.  Now  his 
writings  make  it  clear  that  if  the  Church  depends  upon  the 
bishop,  the  bishop  himself  depends  upon  the  Church.  He 
is  their  representative,  elected  by  their  suffrage.  Cornelius 
had  been  made  Bishop  of  Rome  “  according  to  the  judge¬ 
ment  of  God  and  His  Christ,  on  the  testimony  of  nearly 
all  the  clergy,  by  the  vote  of  the  laity  who  were  present, 
and  with  the  consent  of  bishops,  men  of  age  and  character.”1 
What  did  this  mean  ?  The  judgement  of  God  was  believed 
to  have  been  shewn  by  the  voice  of  the  Church.  We  have 
no  evidence  of  actual  voting.  We  may  presume  that  the 
laity  assented  by  their  applause  to  the  testimony  recorded 
to  anyone  proposed  as  a  candidate.2  It  may  be  doubtful 
whether  there  was  any  constitutional  form,  but  the  bishop 
was  intended  to  be  and,  normally  at  any  rate,  was  the 
man  chosen  by  the  voice  of  the  people.  In  the  same  way 
if  a  bishop  was  unfaithful  or  immoral  the  people  might 
leave  him,  in  fact  ought  to  do  so.3  No  doubt  there  were 
occasions  when  the  carrying  out  of  these  principles,  especi¬ 
ally  in  the  absence  of  any  constitutional  form,  produced 
friction  and  controversy,  but  they  leave  no  doubt  that  the 
bishop  was  looked  upon  as  the  representative  of  the  people. 

In  the  same  way  in  the  administration  of  his  office  the 
bishop  acted  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  people 
and  after  consulting  them.  We  are  able  to  learn  this 

1  Cyp.,  Ep.  lv.  8. 

2  The  most  interesting  account  that  I  am  acquainted  with  of 
the  election  of  a  bishop  is  that  of  the  successor  of  St.  Augustine 
[Ep.  ccxiii.). 

3  Cyp.,  Ep.  lxvii.  3,  “Propter  quod  plebs  obsequens  praeceptis 
dominions  et  Deum  metuens  a  peccatore  praeposito  separare  se 
debet,  nec  se  ad  sacrilegi  sacerdotis  sacrificia  miscere,  quando  ipsa 
maxime  habeat  potestatem  uel  eligendi  dignos  sacerdotes  uel  indignos 
recusandi.” 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  THE  LAITY 


ii9 

from  the  peculiar  circumstances  which  led  to  so  much  of 
the  correspondence  of  Cyprian.  He  was  away  from  his 
people  in  retreat  with  some  few  clergy.  The  normal 
life  of  the  Church  was  broken  up,  and  the  regular  public 
assemblies  for  worship  and  Church  government  no  longer 
possible.  On  various  occasions  Cyprian  wishes  to  ordain 
to  minor  orders,  and  on  each  occasion  he  emphasizes  the 
point  that  he  does  not  usually  take  such  action  except 
after  consultation  with  the  whole  Church.  From  the 
beginning  he  had  laid  down  a  rule  that  he  could  do  nothing 
on  his  own  private  motion  without  the  counsel  of  the 
clergy  and  the  consent  of  the  people.1  Still  more  important 
is  the  ideal  that  he  puts  forward  with  regard  to  the  difficult 
question  of  the  lapsed.  That  was  one  which  had  been 
treated  in  consultation  with  the  bishops  of  the  province, 
presbyters,  deacons,  confessors,  and  the  faithful  laity;  and 
he  claims  that  therefore  the  decision  arrived  at  had  the 
authority  of  the  whole  Church.2  No  doubt  a  strong-willed 
bishop  would  generally  carry  his  clergy  and  people  with 
him,  and  even  by  the  respect  for  his  office  might  overpower 
their  will,  but  that  did  not  take  away  from  the  constitu¬ 
tional  right  which  they  possessed  and  often  exercised. 

There  was  a  certain  difference  from  the  point  of  view  of 
modern  times.  There  was  not  any  system  of  representative 
government.  There  were  no  councils  of  the  laity;  their 
position  was  not  clearly  defined.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Christian  society  was  not  so  large  as  it  afterwards 
became,  and  probably  the  defects  of  later  years  arose  from 
the  fact  that  the  methods  of  early  days  had  become  no 
longer  applicable.  The  laity  had,  however,  a  recognized 
position  in  the  constitution  of  the  Church;  their  assent  was 
necessary  to  all  that  was  done;  they  were  present  at  all 

1  Cyp.,  Ep.  xiv.  4,  “  Quando  a  primordio  episcopatus  mei  statuerim 
nihil  sine  consilio  uestro  et  sine  consensu  plebis  me  priuatim  sen- 
tentia  gerere." 

2  Cyp.,  Ep.  xxxi.  6,  “  Consultis  omnibus  episcopis  presbyteris 
diaconibus  confessoribus  et  ipsis  stantibus  laicis  Ep.  xxxiv.  4, 
“  Cui  rei  non  puto  me  solum  debere  sententiam  dare,  cum  multi 
adhuc  de  clero  absentes  sint  nec  locum  suum  uel  sero  repetendum 
putauerint  et  cognitio  haec  singulorum  tractanda  sit  et  limanda 
plenius,  non  tantum  cum  collegis  meis,  sed  cum  plebe  ipsa  uniuersa.>> 
Cf.  Ep.  xix.  2,  xxx.  5. 


120  ,  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

Synods  and  Church  Councils,  where  they  could  express  their 
assent  or  dissent;  they  are  definitely  included  in  the  ad¬ 
dresses  of  Cyprian’s  letters.1  The  fact  of  the  absence  of 
modern  methods  of  government  has  often  obscured  the 
influence  and  authority  of  the  laity  in  the  early  Church ; 
but  if  we  study  the  history  carefully  we  shall  see  that  in 
reality  in  their  hands  often  lay  the  final  decision.  A  Church 
Council  which  decided  a  question  contrary  to  the  general 
sense  of  the  Church  failed.  It  became  known  in  history 
as  a  robber  synod.  If  a  bishop  adopted  a  policy  in  which 
the  laity  would  not  follow  him,  he  would  divide  the  Church 
and  very  likely  cease  to  be  bishop. 

We  turn  now  to  the  relation  of  the  bishop  to  the  Church 
as  a  whole.  In  the  letters  of  Cyprian  we  have  a  theory 
and  practice  clearly  depicted.  Certain  great  questions 
agitated  the  Church,  the  treatment  of  the  lapsed  and  the 
baptism  of  heretics.  It  was  obviously  desirable  that  there 
should  be  united  action.  This  Cyprian,  who  had  large 
and  statesmanlike  instincts,  desired  to  obtain  by  means 
of  Church  Councils  on  a  large  scale.  The  bishops  in  each 
province  should  meet  together  and  should  communicate 
their  decisions  one  to  another.  In  that  way  unanimity  or 
common  action  might  be  obtained.  This  policy  was  sup¬ 
ported  by  a  theory  of  the  unity  of  the  Church.  That  lay 
in  the  solidarity  of  the  episcopal  body.  They  had  their 
origin  in  one,  for  the  commission  of  authority  was  given 
to  one  man,  Peter,  originally.  That  implied  unity.  But  it 
did  not  imply  any  supremacy.  Each  bishop  had  an  equal 
share  in  this  authority,  but  the  Church  was  bound  together 
by  the  harmony  and  solidarity  of  the  whole  episcopal  body.2 

How  far  did  Cyprian  represent  the  general  Church 
opinion  ? 

So  far  as  practical  development  went  his  policy  was 
accepted.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  action  made 

1  So  the  first  letter  is  addressed,  “  Presbyteris  et  diaconibus  et 
plebi  Furnis  consistentibus.”  See  also  xvii.,  xxxviii.,  xxxix.,  xl., 
xliii.,  lviii.,  lxv.,  lxvii.,  lxxxi. 

2  See  especially  the  De  Unitate,  chap.  4,  5.  The  question  has 
been,  of  course,  often  discussed,  most  recently  by  Dr.  Bernard  in 
The  Early  History  of  the  Church  and  Ministry,  and  with  great  ability 
by  the  Rev.  T.  A.  Lacey,  M.A.,  in  Unity  and  Schism  (London,  Mowbray 
and  Co.),  Appendix  II.,  “  The  Scheme  of  St.  Cyprian.” 


THE  AUTHORITY  OF  COUNCILS 


121 


the  Church  Council  a  power  which  it  had  not  been  before, 
and  led  directly  to  the  (Ecumenical  Councils  of  the  fourth 
and  following  centuries.  The  (Ecumenical  Council  has 
not  always  been  so  imposing  a  body  as  we  might  desire, 
but  as  an  organ  for  formulating  the  voice  of  the  Church 
and  preserving  its  freedom  its  action  has  been  wholesome 
and  effective.  The  divisions  of  Christianity  have  been 
largely  due  to  the  suppression  of  the  Church  Council,  or  to 
its  action  being  rendered  ineffective  by  the  power  of  the 
State,  by  the  rivalry  of  nations  and  races,  and  by  the 
ambitions  of  the  Papacy.  It  will  only  be  in  and  through 
councils  which  transcend  the  present  divisions  of  nations 
and  churches  that  unity  can  be  restored. 

But  the  theory  is  one  which  only  imperfectly  represents 
the  feeling  of  the  undivided  Church.  During  Cyprian’s 
time  there  were  no  divisions  on  questions  of  faith;  they 
arose  entirely  on  matters  of  Church  order.  But  in  the 
fourth  century  every  question  was  one  of  truth  and  false¬ 
hood,  and  an  entirely  different  standard  arose.  Many 
bishops  failed  in  their  orthodoxy.  Whole  councils  arrived  at 
decisions  which  the  Christian  sense  refused  to  accept.  You 
could  not  judge  a  man’s  orthodoxy  by  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
bishop,  a  bishop  must  be  estimated  by  the  orthodoxy  of  his 
teaching.  The  standard,  therefore,  became  one  of  faith.  The 
short,  clear-cut  ways  of  arriving  at  a  decision  on  truth  and 
order  which  Cyprian  tried  to  establish  failed,  as  they  always 
have  failed.  The  unity  of  the  Church  depends  on  its  faith¬ 
ful  preservation  of  the  Evangelical  and  Apostolic  tradition. 
That  includes  the  Creed,  the  Sacraments,  the  Christian  life, 
the  traditional  order.  On  no  one  of  these  can  exclusive 
stress  be  laid.  No  one  will  give  a  clear  standard  of  Church 
unity.  That,  as  our  history  proceeds,  will  become  plain. 
The  standard  of  unity  should  be  the  full  Apostolic  tradition 
as  witnessed  to  by  the  corporate  consciousness  of  the 
Church,  and  the  council  of  bishops  has  its  authority  only 
as  expressing  that  consciousness. 

A  further  question  arises  as  to  the  relation  of  the  unity 
of  the  Church  to  questions  of  uniformity.  Here  the  tradi¬ 
tion  of  the  Church  has  always  been  one  of  freedom.  For 
long  the  Churches  of  Asia  and  of  the  West  differed  as  to 


122 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


the  rule  of  keeping  Easter,  and  much  feeling  arose  when 
Victor  of  Rome  attempted  to  excommunicate  those  churches 
which  differed  from  his  usage.1  Each  church  had  its  own 
creed,  its  own  liturgy,  and  its  own  canons.  Cyprian 
emphasizes  the  freedom  of  the  individual  community.  On 
the  serious  question  of  allowing  penance  for  adultery  he 
tells  us  that  it  had  been  recognized  that  each  church  might 
preserve  its  own  custom,2  and  later,  on  the  rebaptism  of 
heretics,  he  says  that  each  bishop  is  to  do  what  he  thinks 
right.  He  is  not  going  to  break  the  unity  of  the  Church 
for  any  heretic,  and  this  assertion  of  his  received  the  appro¬ 
bation  at  a  later  date  of  St.  Augustine.3  This  has  always 
been  theoretically  the  rule  of  the  Church.  No  decree  of 
any  Council  has  authority  until  it  has  been  promulgated 
by  each  bishop  in  his  diocese  and  received  there.  If  he 
does  not  do  so,  or  the  diocese  does  not  accept  the  decree, 
the  remedy  is  excommunication.  But  excommunication 
which  breaks  the  unity  of  the  Church  should  only  proceed 
in  grave  matters  of  faith. 

But  the  tendency  of  Christian  development  has  always 
been  towards  greater  uniformity,  a  uniformity  which  has 
ultimately  become  excessive  and  been  a  fruitful  cause  of  dis¬ 
union,  and  it  will  be  advantageous  to  consider  how  this  arose. 

In  the  first  place  it  came  from  the  opposition  between 
orthodoxy  and  heresy.  When  a  great  movement  arose, 
which  was  felt  inadequately  to  represent  Christian  tradition, 
like  Arianism,  the  inconvenience  of  many  separate  creeds 
and  the  value  of  a  common  standard  became  apparent. 
There  must  be  a  fundamental  unity  of  belief.  But  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  insist  on  uniformity  of  expression  and  opinion 
would  grow,  orthodoxy  ultimately  would  become  a  sub- 

1  See  especially  the  document  quoted  by  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.,  v.  24. 

2  Cyp.,  Ep.  lv.  21,  “Manente  concordiae  uinculo  et  perseuerante 
catholicae  ecclesiae  indiuiduo  Sacramento,  actum  suum  disponit  et 
dirigit  unusquisque  episcopus  rationem  propositi  sui  Domino  red- 
di  turns .” 

3  Cyp.,  Ep.  lxxiii.  26,  “  Haec  tibi  breuibus  pro  nostra  medio- 
critate  rescripsimus,  frater  carissime,  nemini  praescribentes  aut 
praeiudicantes  quo  minus  unusquisque  episcoporum  quod  putat  faciat, 
habens  arbitrii  sui  liber  am  potestatem.  Nos,  quantum  in  nobis,  est, 
propter  haereticos  cum  collegis  et  coepiscopis  nostris  non  contendi- 
mus,  cum  quibus  diuinam  concordiam  et  dominicam  pacem  tenemus.” 


UNIFORMITY 


123 

stitute  for  faith  instead  of  the  expression  of  faith,  and  what 
was  originally  intended  to  promote  union  would  become 
a  fruitful  source  of  disunion. 

Then,  secondly,  there  are  obvious  practical  advantages 
in  uniformity  of  custom.  It  is  certainly  convenient  when 
people  move  from  one  place  to  another  that  they  should 
find  a  Christian  service  in  which  they  are  at  home.  It  is 
not  convenient  if  the  rules  of  marriage  and  divorce  differ 
from  place  to  place,  or  if  an  adulterer  can  in  one  place  be 
readmitted  to  communion,  in  another  is  condemned  to 
remain  outside  the  Church  the  rest  of  his  life.  The  advan¬ 
tages  of  some  uniformity  are  obvious,  but  ultimately  the 
tendency  to  rigid  centralization  destroys  the  life  of  the 
whole  body,  and  often  causes  far-reaching  schism. 

A  third  incentive  to  uniformity  is  the  action  of  the  State. 
The  law-maker  does  not  like  exceptions.  He  wishes  to 
reduce  everything  to  one  model.  He  would  fit  mankind 
into  the  framework  that  he  constructs.  From  the  time 
of  Constantine  onwards  this  force  was  working  in  the 
Christian  Church,  partly  perhaps  with  good,  partly  with 
evil  effects.  It  became  particularly  conspicuous  in  the 
Byzantine  Empire,  where  its  twofold  results  may  be  ob¬ 
served.  On  the  one  side  it  created  that  homogeneous 
system  of  life  and  faith  and  Church  order  which  we  now 
know  as  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church;  on  the  other  side 
it  was  reaction  from  Byzantine  rule  as  much  as  doctrinal 
differences  which  created  the  Nestorian  and  Jacobite 
heresies.  The  peoples  of  the  East  could  not  be  cast  in  the 
same  mould  as  the  Greek.1 

1  In  the  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  vol.  xx.,  No.  8,  July, 
1919,  p.  357,  will  be  found  a  review  by  Professor  Vernon  Bartlet 
of  The  Early  History  of  the  Church  and  the  Ministry,  and  especially 
of  Dr.  Mason’s  Essay  on  the  Church.  He  tries  to  distinguish 
between  the  Church  as  the  spiritual  Israel,  and  the  quasi-legal 
conception  of  Catholicism.  The  distinction  seems  to  me  one  which 
it  is  impossible  to  make.  The  whole  idea  of  rule  and  order  was 
inherent  in  the  Church  because  it  was  the  New  Israel.  The  New 
Israel  must  have  its  rules  and  external  fabric  as  much  as  the  old, 
if  it  is  to  live  in  the  world.  The  visible  Church  is  the  same  through¬ 
out,  and  Catholicism  is  only  the  name  given  to  that  system  of 
order  which  did  enable  and  does  enable  the  Church  to  attain 
unity  and  universality.  What  really  underlies  his  criticism  is  that 
as  time  went  on  rule  and  order  became  excessive  and  rigid  and 
defeated  the  aim  with  which  it  was  created. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


124 

If  we  try  to  emphasize  generally  the  position  and  autho¬ 
rity  of  the  bishop  in  the  Church  it  will,  I  think,  become 
apparent  that  there  are  two  theories,  the  antagonism  of 
which  is  only  partly  apparent.  The  normal,  traditional, 
and  healthy  theory  was  that  the  authority  lay  in  the  Church, 
and  the  bishop  was  the  minister  of  its  corporate  action. 
But  the  exigencies  of  controversy,  the  demand  for  effective 
action,  the  desire  for  uniformity  alike  would  lead  to  stress 
being  laid  on  the  bishop’s  independent  action.  He  would 
claim  and  be  conceded  the  position  of  ruler  rather  than 
minister,  and  an  authority  which  might  act  beneficially  for 
a  time  would  ultimately  destroy  the  spontaneous  life  of 
the  community. 

IV 

On  what  did  the  authority  of  the  bishops,  or  of  the 
bishops  and  clergy,  depend  ?  We  enter  now  on  a  difficult 
and  controversial  question.  It  is  often  said  that  the 
authority  of  bishops  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  possessed 
the  Apostolical  Succession.  It  is  necessary  first  of  all  to 
examine  this  statement  and  consider  how  far  it  is  valid.1 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  bishop  was  looked 
upon  as  successor  of  the  Apostles,  and  that  the  Apostolic 
Succession  of  the  great  sees  was  emphasized  from  an  early 
period;  but  the  exact  meaning  and  implication  of  these 
facts  is  not  so  clear. 

The  germs  of  the  idea  are  present  in  Clement  of  Rome,2 

1  The  views  on  the  Apostolic  Succession  contained  in  this  lecture 
were  first  put  forward  by  myself  in  The  Prayer-Book  Dictionary 
(London,  Putnam’s  Sons,  1912),  pp.  38-43,  and  I  am  pleased  to  find 
that  the  conclusions  that  I  there  arrived  at  have  been  corro¬ 
borated  independently  by  my  friend  Mr.  C.  H.  Turner  in  the  essay 
already  alluded  to,  published  in  The  Early  History  of  the  Church 
and  the  Ministry.  The  best  exposition  of  the  commonly  received 
opinions  is  that  by  Bishop  Gore  in  The  Church  and  the  Ministry 
(new  edition,  1919). 

2  The  exact  conception  of  Clement  of  Rome  is  difficult  to  arrive 
at.  His  main  statement  is  that  “  the  Apostles  received  the  Gospel 
for  us  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  Jesus  Christ  was  sent  forth  from 
God.  So  then  Christ  is  from  God,  and  the  Apostles  are  from  Christ.’* 
(See  the  whole  passage  quoted  above,  p.  100.)  The  bishops  had 
been  appointed  by  the  Apostles  and  owed  their  authority  to  that 
appointment.  The  message  also  that  they  gave  they  had  received 
from  God  through  Christ,  but  there  is  nothing  said  which  suggests 
either  that  spiritual  gifts  or  authority  came  by  transmission.  These 
ideas  have  been  read  into  the  passage. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 


125 

but  it  is  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century  that  the 
importance  of  the  succession  of  bishops  in  the  great  sees  is 
emphasized.  It  is  in  the  writings  of  Hippolytus,  and  still 
more  of  Cyprian,  that  we  find  stress  laid  on  the  authority  and 
spiritual  dignity  of  the  bishops  as  representatives  of  the 
Apostles.  The  idea  of  succession  and  its  importance  in  this 
early  sense  is  dwelt  on  in  Eusebius,  but  it  becomes  of  much 
less  importance  in  the  fourth  century;  there  is  very  little 
said  about  it  in  St.  Augustine,  nor  is  it  found  in  the  collec¬ 
tions  of  mystical  writings  that  bear  the  name  of  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite,  which  exalt  the  spiritual  character  of  the 
Christian  ministry  so  highly. 

But  when  we  come  to  examine  the  meaning  of  the  expres¬ 
sion  we  shall  find  that  it  has  been  used  in  three  different 
significations,  and  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  these  care¬ 
fully.  We  shall  find  that  the  earlier  meaning  differed 
markedly  from  that  which  has  prevailed  in  later  times. 

1.  The  importance  of  this  succession  of  bishops  was  made 
apparent  in  the  controversy  with  the  Gnostic  heretics  which 
was  one  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the  second  century. 
The  Gnostics  claimed  to  teach  a  more  profound  Christian 
doctrine,  and  asserted  that  they  had  received  it  by  a  secret 
tradition  from  the  Apostles.  To  meet  this  claim  Irenaeus 
and  other  theologians  appealed  to  the  open  tradition  of  the 
great  churches.  It  was  no  secret,  unknown  succession  of 
obscure  teachers  that  had  handed  on  the  true  Apostolic 
tradition,  but  the  open  succession  of  well-known  bishops. 
In  Rome,  in  Asia,  at  Antioch,  at  Jerusalem,  as  in  other 
cities,  there  were  churches  founded  by  Apostles,  and  in 
these  there  had  been  since  their  days  a  continuous  succes¬ 
sion  of  bishops,  publicly  appointed  to  their  office.  These 
had  handed  on  the  true  tradition  of  Christianity,  its  Scrip¬ 
tures,  its  faith,  its  rules  of  life,  and  its  Church  order.  Bishop 
had  succeeded  bishop.  Each  had  followed  the  doctrine 
of  his  predecessor.  This  open  tradition  was  a  strong 
testimony  to  the  truth  of  their  teaching.  The  argument 
is  a  valid  one,  although  it  ought  not  to  be  pressed  too  far, 
for  all  oral  tradition,  and  even  much  written  tradition, 
changes  subtly  and  unobserved.  But  as  all  these  sees 
might  claim  to  have  handed  down  the  same  records,  to 


126 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


have  taught  the  same  Christianity,  their  combined  witness 
is  strong.  Other  churches  which  could  not  claim  an 
Apostolic  founder  had  received  the  Gospel  from  Apostolic 
churches,  and  so  they,  too,  preserved  the  Apostolic 
succession.1 

The  argument  was  one  which  historically  had  a  good 
foundation.  Even  if  there  had  been  some  changes  in  the 
character  of  the  ministry  there  was  no  doubt  there  had 
been  a  succession  of  officials  in  the  churches.  It  was  a  fact 
also  of  real  value.  It  is  an  admirable  instance  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  Christian  society  helped  to  preserve 
the  Christian  Gospel.  But  we  must  be  quite  clear  what 
it  implies  and  what  it  does  not.  It  implies  no  more  than 
a  succession  of  rulers,  each  lawfully  appointed  to  his  office, 
or  a  succession  of  teachers  in  a  school.  It  does  not  imply 
any  succession  by  ordination.  The  bishop  was  properly 
ordained,  no  doubt.  The  meaning  of  that  we  shall  con¬ 
sider  later,  but  there  is  no  idea  that  the  validity  of  his 
ordination  depended  upon  this  succession,  or  that  the 
succession  depended  upon  any  spiritual  gifts  received  at 
ordination.  If  the  manner  of  appointment  to  office  had 
been  without  any  religious  ceremony  the  succession  for 
this  purpose  would  have  been  equally  valid.  The  impor¬ 
tant  point  was  correct  and  public  appointment  to  the  office. 

2.  At  a  somewhat  later  date  the  bishops  began  to  be 
spoken  of  more  directly  in  their  personal  capacity  as  the 
successors  of  the  Apostles.2  This  meant  that  they  per¬ 
formed  the  functions  of  the  Apostles.  Like  them  they 
were  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  they  administered  its  disci¬ 
pline,  they  were  its  principal  teachers,  they  preserved  and 
guaranteed  the  truth  of  its  doctrine,  they  performed  its 

1  The  point  of  view  is  given  with  great  lucidity  in  Turner,  op.  cit 
pp.  1 15  ff.,  who  quotes  ample  illustrations.  The  main  passage  is 
Irenaeus,  Haer.,  III.  i.-iv.,  cf.  III.  iii.  1,  “  Traditionem  itaque  Aposto- 
lorum  in  toto  mundo  manifestatam,  in  omni  Ecclesia  adest  per- 
spicere  omnibus  qui  vera  velint  videre,  et  habemus  annumerare  eos 
qui  ab  Apostolis  instituti  sunt  cpiscopi  in  ecclesiis,  et  successiones 
eorum  usque  ad  nos.” 

2  The  earliest  instance  I  believe  to  be  that  in  Hippolytus,  Refutatio, 
Prooemium,  T avrci  Se  irepog  ovk  iXty^u  r\  to  tv  iicic\i]<jiq,  7capado0tv  aytov 
TTvtupa,  o')  Tvxovreg  7 rportpoL  oi  a7r6rrru\oi  ptrtdooav  rolg  opQujg  irtmoTiVKoaiv, 
(ov  rjpttg  Siadoxoi  rvyxavovreg  rfjg  re  avrijg  x^PlT0Q  pirtxovTtQ  apx^cpardag 
re  Kal  diSaoicaXiaQ  icai  (ppovpoi  rrjg  hcxXqoiag  XtXoyi(jpt.voi.  .  .  . 


SUCCESSION  BY  ORDINATION 


127 

Sacraments,  and  in  particular  laid  their  hands  on  the 
faithful  in  confirmation,  in  penance,  in  ordination.  Now 
in  this  sense  also  the  use  of  the  term  is  quite  normal  and 
in  accordance  with  many  analogies.  In  a  succession  of 
kings  in  any  country  each  one  fulfils  the  functions  and 
inherits  the  privileges  of  his  predecessor,  and  these  can 
often  be  traced  back  to  some  historical  founder.  A  similar 
succession  has  often  existed  in  a  philosophical  school. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  this  sense  the  conception 
has  been  held  in  the  Church  from  the  third  century  onwards. 

3.  But  there  is  a  third  signification  in  which  the  term 
Apostolic  Succession  is  used,  and  to  define  this  I  cannot 
do  better  than  quote  the  statement  made  by  Bishop  Gore. 
"  It  was  intended  that  there  should  be  in  each  generation 
an  authoritative  stewardship  of  the  grace  and  truth  which 
came  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  a  recognized  power  to  transmit 
it,  derived  from  above  by  Apostolic  descent.”1  This  succes¬ 
sion  is  not  merely  a  succession  of  office,  but  a  succession  of 
ordination.  It  is  believed  that  those  spiritual  gifts  with 
which  the  Church  has  always  considered  that  its  ministers 
are  endowed  came  from  the  Apostles  by  a  direct  succession 
or  channel.  The  Apostles  transferred  the  gifts  to  the  first 
bishops  by  laying  on  of  hands,  and  they  in  turn  on  those 
who  came  after  them.  Even  if,  as  many  would  now  realize, 
here,  as  in  all  other  Sacraments,  the  gifts  come  direct  from 
Christ,  the  coming  of  the  gift  is  still  held  to  depend  upon 
this  fact  of  transmission.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of 
ambiguity  as  to  whether  it  is  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  or  only 
authority  that  comes  in  this  way,  but  what  is  definitely 
maintained  is  that  for  a  valid  ministry  and  the  due  per¬ 
formance  of  the  Sacraments  this  succession  and  transmission 
by  ordination  is  necessary.2 

1  Gore,  The  Church  and  the  Ministry,  p.  59.  The  theory  is  worked 
out  through  the  whole  chapter. 

2  In  the  following  passages  Cyprian  connects  the  succession  with 
ordination : 

(1)  Ep.  xxxiii.  1,  “  Inde  per  temporum  et  successionum  uices 
episcoporum  ordinatio  et  ecclesiae  ratio  decurrit  ut  ecclesia  super 
episcopos  constituatur  et  omnis  actus  ecclesiae  per  eosdem  prae- 
positos  gubernetur.”  Here  the  meaning  is  that  each  bishop  in 
succession  has  been  properly  appointed  and  ordained  and  therefore 
the  regular  succession  has  been  preserved. 


128 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


I  am  not  at  present  proposing  to  discuss  the  merits  of 
this  theory;  what  I  desire  now  to  put  before  you  is  this, 
that  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge  it  was  not  held  at  all 
in  the  early  Church.  I  have,  I  think,  read  everything 
from  the  Fathers  which  is  quoted  in  favour  of  Apostolic 
Succession,  and  I  do  not  know  any  passage  which  speaks  of 
succession  by  ordination  in  this  sense.  If  this  statement 
be  correct,  the  argument  from  silence  becomes,  I  think, 
conclusive,  because  we  are  not  dealing  with  periods  about 
which  we  have  little  information.  We  have  very  full 
knowledge.  The  explanation  of  this  mistaken  view  is,  I 
think,  this:  At  some  period — it  is  a  little  difficult  to  know 
when — the  idea  that  valid  orders  depended  upon  the  suc¬ 
cession  grew  up.  With  this  idea  in  their  minds  people 
turned  to  the  early  Fathers.  They  found  constant  references 
to  Apostolic  Succession,  and  not  unnaturally  they  interpreted 
them  according  to  the  ideas  in  their  minds.  The  conse¬ 
quence  is  that  passages  are  habitually  quoted  in  favour  of 
the  modern  view  which  do  not  really  support  it  at  all. 

The  conclusion,  then,  that  I  would  put  to  you  is  this, 
that  from  a  period  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  and  very  probably  earlier,  the  idea  was  prominent 
in  the  Christian  Church  that  there  had  been  a  regular 
succession  of  bishops  in  the  principal  sees  since  the  days 
of  their  Apostolic  founders.  This  belief  was  probably  well 
established,  and  it  was  held,  and,  within  certain  limits, 
probably  rightly  held,  that  it  was  strong  evidence  for  the 
claims  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  teach  truly  the  Christian 


(2)  Ep.  lxvi.  4  (cf.  lxxv.  16),  “  Qui  dicit  ad  Apostolos  ac  per  hoc 
ad  omnes  praepositos  qui  Apostolis  uicaria  ordinatione  succedunt.,, 
The  exact  meaning  of  “  vicaria  ordinatione  ”  is  difficult.  It  appears 
to  mean  that  others  in  the  place  of  Apostles  have  ordained  them,  or 
that  they  have  been  ordained  in  the  place  of  the  Apostles. 

(3)  Ep.  lxix.  5,  “  Si  autem  grex  unus  est,  quomodo  potest 
gregi  adnumerari  qui  in  numero  gregis  non  est  aut  pastor  haberi 
quomodo  potest  qui  manente  vero  pastore  et  in  ecclesia  Dei  ordi¬ 
natione  succedanea  praesidente  nemini  succedens  et  a  se  ipse  incipiens 
alienus  fit  et  profanus?”  This  brings  out  very  well  what  Cyprian 
means  by  Apostolic  Succession.  The  schismatic  bishop  he  refers 
to  would  have  been  quite  validly  ordained  and  had  the  Apostolic 
Succession  according  to  modern  notions.  But  he  had  not  taken  his 
place  by  an  orderly  ordination  in  the  list  of  the  succession.  Cyprian 
does  not  mean  sacramental  transmission  but  orderly  appointment. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ORDERS 


129 

tradition.  It  was  further  held  (our  evidence  does  not  go 
back  quite  so  early)  that  these  same  bishops  might  be 
looked  on  as  the  successors  of  the  Apostles  in  the  sense 
that  they  performed  the  same  functions  that  the  Apostles 
had  exercised  in  their  own  times.  Of  any  idea,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  their  spiritual  gifts  depended  upon  trans¬ 
mission  from  the  Apostles,  or  that  they  in  ordination 
transmitted  grace  to  others  which  had  come  to  them  from 
the  Apostles,  there  is  no  evidence  at  all. 

If  this  is  so,  the  next  question  that  arises  is,  What  was 
it  that  constituted  a  valid,  or  correct,  or  regular  ordination 
according  to  the  theory  of  the  early  Church  ?  What,  in 
fact,  was  their  doctrine  of  orders  ? 

Let  us  first  examine  an  early  ordinal — I  will  take  that 
in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions}  It  is  not  the  earliest,  but 
it  is  the  fullest,  and  therefore  the  one  in  which  we  should  be 
most  likely  to  find  later  views.  The  form  of  service  which 
is  there  given  is  preceded  by  a  treatise  on  spiritual  gifts,  and 
it  may  be  noted  that  these  are  defined  as  the  gifts  which 
God  has  given  to  man  through  Christ.  They  were  first 
given  to  the  A  Ktles,  and  then  to  those  who  believed 
through  the  Apos*.  Vs,  but  nothing  is  said  about  their  being 
transmitted  through  the  Apostles.1 2 

The  ordination  of  a  bishop  is  then  described.  The  first 
point  that  is  insisted  upon  is  that  he  must  be  elected  by 
the  people.3  He  is  ordained  by  bishops  in  the  presence  of 
the  presbyters  and  laity,  who  must  bear  witness  that  he 
is  the  man  that  they  have  chosen,  and  also  that  he  is  of 
holy  and  blameless  life.  Then  follows  the  prayer  of  con¬ 
secration.  It  is  addressed  to  the  Almighty,  who  has  given 
the  rules  of  the  Church  through  the  presence  of  Christ  in 
the  flesh,  with  the  witness  of  the  Paraclete,  by  the  hands 
of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  bishops  who  are  present  by  His 

1  The  best  account  of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  is  in  Bright- 
man,  Liturgies  Eastern  and  Western,  vol.  i.,  p.  xvii  ff.  See  also 
Maclean,  The  Ancient  Church  Orders. 

2  Apostolical  Constitutions,  VIII.  i.  2  (ed.  Funk),  tovtmv  t&v  xaPlm 
<T/iarwv  7 rporepov  fikv  r)fuv  doOsvrcjv  rolg  cnroaroXoig  fisXXovffiv  “  to  (.vayykXiov 
KaruyysXXeiv  tt day  ry  kt'kt ft,”  h reira  rolg  81  rjH&v  mcmvoaoiv  avayicaiiog 
Xopriyovfisvoiv. 

3  lb.,  VIII.  iv.  2,  virb  TTdvrog  roii  X<tov  UX^Xeyfievov, 


9 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


130 

grace.1  From  the  beginning  God  had  ordained  priests  for 
the  government  of  His  people. 

“  Do  thou  now  on  the  intercession  of  thy  Christ 
through  us  pour  forth  the  power  of  thy  ruling  Spirit, 
which  ministers  to  thy  beloved  Son  Jesus  Christ,  which 
he  gave  according  to  thy  will  to  the  holy  Apostles  of 
thee  the  eternal  God.2  Grant  in  thy  name,  O  God 
that  searcheth  the  hearts  of  men,  to  this  thy  servant 
whom  thou  hast  chosen  to  be  a  bishop,  to  feed  thy 
holy  flock,  to  perform  the  offlce  of  an  high  priest, 
blamelessly  ministering  night  and  day  and  propitiating 
thy  presence,  to  gather  together  the  number  of  the 
saved  and  offer  the  gifts  of  thy  holy  church.  Grant 
to  him,  Almighty  Lord,  through  thy  Christ,  to  share 
in  thy  holy  Spirit,  so  that  he  may  have  power  to 
forgive  sins  according  to  thy  command,  to  ordain 
clergy  according  to  thine  ordinance,  to  loose  every 
yoke  according  to  the  power  which  thou  gavest  to 
thy  Apostles,  to  be  pleasing  to  thee  in  meekness  and 
a  pure  heart,  without  wavering,  free  from  all  reproach, 
blamelessly,  offering  to  thee  the  pure  and  unbloody 
sacrifice  which  thou  ordainedst  through  Christ,  the 
mystery  of  the  New  Covenant,  for  a  sweet  savour 
through  thy  holy  child  Jesus.” 

Now  we  notice  in  this  prayer  that  the  Almighty  is  asked 
to  give  to  the  bishop  to  be  ordained  the  same  Spirit  that 
He  gave  to  the  Apostles,  and  through  the  Spirit  will  come 
the  power  to  perform  the  same  spiritual  functions  as  the 
Apostles,  and  in  particular  to  ordain  ministers,  but  nothing 
is  said  about  the  giving  the  Spirit  through  the  Apostles, 
nor  is  there  any  idea  of  transmission,  and  this  is  made  the 
more  pointed  by  the  reference  to  the  rules  of  the  Church. 
These  had  come  from  God  through  Christ  and  His  Spirit, 
and  particular  reference  is  made  to  the  work  of  the  Apostles 

1  Apostolical  Constitutions,  VIII.  V.  3,  gv  6  Sovg  opovg  tiacXriGiag  Sid 
rrjg  svcapicov  Trapovoicig  rov  XpiGrov  o ov  viro  p.dprvpi  Tip  TrctpaicXrjrip  Sia  tCjv  gu>v 
cnroGroXiov  ical  ppiov  ru>v  x^lPiTl  aV  7rap£GT0)ru)i'  £7ri<r/co7rwv. 

2  lb.,  VIII.  V.  5,  avTog  Kal  vvv  peaiTtiijiT oil  Xpiorov  gov  Si ’  Tjfidv  h 
rr/v  Svvapiv  rov  “  riytpioviKOv  gov  Trvtvfiarog,”  07rtp  SiaKOVtlrcu  rip  r)yam)p.£V<p 
gov  ttcuSi  'Itjgov  XptGTip,  07r(.p  iSivppoaTO  yvupij  gov  Tolg  ciyioig  cnroGToXoig  gov 
tov  aUvviov  06ov. 


A  VALID  ORDINATION 


PJ 

and  the  bishops.  There  is  a  reference  to  tradition,  but 
it  is  the  tradition  of  the  teaching  and  ordinances  of  the 
Church,  which  had  come  through  the  Apostles  and  bishops. 

The  essentials  of  a  valid  ordination  were  that  it  should 
be  performed  as  the  Church  had  ordained.  The  ordinances 
of  the  Church  were  believed  to  have  been  laid  down  by  the 
Apostles,  and  it  is  obedience  to  the  Apostolic  ordinances 
and  not  transmission  of  grace  that  is  emphasized.  There 
is  no  hint  of  transmission.  The  spiritual  gifts  come  as  the 
direct  gift  of  God  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  Church. 

The  following  appear  to  be  the  principles  involved  in  the 
due  performance  of  ordination. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  generally  believed  that  it 
should  be  performed  in  the  Church.  The  Church  was  the 
home  of  the  Spirit.  In  the  Church  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit 
were  given.  Through  the  Church  came  the  power  to  give 
those  gifts.  How  this  theory  came  to  be  modified  we  shall 
see  in  the  next  lecture. 

Then  secondly,  the  rite  must  be  performed  in  the  way  that 
the  Church  had  ordained.  The  rules  of  the  Church  were  based 
on  the  commands  of  the  Lord,  so  far  as  they  were  known, 
the  customs  of  the  Apostles — it  was  generally  believed  that 
the  customs  of  each  church  were  of  Apostolic  origin — and  the 
regulations  made  by  the  Church.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Church  always  assumes  the  power  of  laying  down  regula¬ 
tions,  even  conflicting  with  tradition,  and  makes,  any  change 
that  the  needs  of  the  times  require. 

Thirdly,  the  rite  must  be  performed  by  the  duly  appointed 
minister  who  had  received  authority  for  the  purpose.  That 
means  in  general  the  bishop.  It  was  the  bishop,  however, 
not  because  there  was  anything  magical  in  his  office  or 
because  he  had  received  spiritual  power  by  transmission 
from  the  Apostles,  but  because  the  Church  had  so  ordered 
it,  and  he  had  been  consecrated  for  that  purpose.  There 
are  a  considerable  number  of  instances  quoted  of  ordina¬ 
tion  by  other  than  bishops.1  None  of  them  are  conclusive, 

1  The  following  are  the  instances  quoted: 

(1)  The  appointment  of  the  Bishops  of  Alexandria  (see  above, 
p.  102). 

(2)  The  Canon  of  Ancyra,  c.  14;  but  here  the  difficulty  is  com¬ 
plicated  by  the  great  uncertainty  of  the  reading.  I  am  not  at  all 


132 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


but  there  are,  I  think,  signs  that  the  rule  had  not  been 
always  rigidly  or  universally  observed.  At  one  period  in 
the  Church,  for  example,  a  confessor  might  become  a  priest 
without  any  ordination.* 1  The  Church  could,  by  its  autho¬ 
rity,  recognize  special  gifts.  The  variations  in  custom  are 
a  sufficient  sign  that  the  authority  and  power  of  a  bishop 
in  ordaining  depended,  not  on  anything  inherent  in  his 
office,  but  on  the  commission  that  he  had  received  from  the 
Church  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  given  him  in  answer  to 
the  prayers  of  the  Church  at  his  consecration. 

Fourthly,  it  must  not,  I  think,  be  overlooked,  how  impor¬ 
tant  a  part  rightful  election  played  in  the  validity  of  a  bishop's 
position.  When  Cyprian  writes  to  emphasize  the  rightful 
authority  of  Cornelius  and  the  sin  of  schismatic  opposition 
to  him,  it  is  the  correct  character  of  his  election  to  which 
he  refers.  Cornelius  had  been  appointed  bishop  by  the 
judgement  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  his  fellow-bishops. 
He  had  passed  through  every  ecclesiastical  grade.  He  had 

convinced  by  Mr.  Turner’s  essay  (Gore,  The  Church  and  the 
Ministry,  p.  327),  but  I  do  not  know  what  is  right. 

(3)  The  case  of  Paphnutius  (see  Hatch,  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  no, 
and  Gore,  op.  cit.,  p.  332). 

For  further  instances  see  Hatch,  op.  cit.,  p.  no.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  all  these  cases  are  doubtful.  Either  the  evidence  is 
inconclusive  or  the  readings  vary.  The  important  point  is  to 
recognize  that  the  question  whether  anyone  could  ordain  or  not 
was  really  looked  upon  as  a  question  of  ecclesiastical  rule.  Apostolical 
Constitutions,  III.  xi.,  ovk  k7riTps7rop.ev  de  7 TpEaj3vrepoLS  xtiporovuv  Sicikovovq 
i)  LcacovicrcraQ,  K.r.a. ,  aXXa  povoig  rolg  (TuaKOTroig  ’  avrt]  yap  kern  Ta%ig  kicicXtjcri. 
acrriKrj  icai  ap/xovLa. 

1  See  the  Canons  of  Hippolytus,  vi.  43-47  (ed.  Achelis,  p.  67),  about 
confessors:  “  Quando  quis  dignus  est,  qui  stet  coram  tribunali 
propter  fidem  et  afficiatur  poena  propter  Christum,  postea  autem 
indulgentia  liber  dimittitur,  talis  postea  meretur  gradum  presby- 
teralem,  non  secundum  ordinationem,  quae  fit  ab  episcopo.  Immo 
confessio  est  ordinatio  eius.  Quod  si  vero  episcopus  fit  ordinetur. 
Si  quis  confessione  emissa  tormentis  laesus  non  est  dignus  est  pres- 
byteratu;  attamen  ordinetur  per  episcopum.  Si  talis  cum  servus 
alicuius  esset,  propter  Christum  cruciatus  pertulit,  talis  similiter 
est  presbyter  gregi.  Quanquam  enim  formam  presbyteratus  non 
acceperit,  tamen  spiritum  presbyteratus  adeptus  est :  episcopus 
igitur  omittet  orationis  partem,  quae  ad  spiritum  sanctum  pertinet.” 

We  are  not,  of  course,  aware  of  the  extent  to  which  this  rule 
prevailed  or  in  what  part  of  the  Church.  The  regulations  in  other 
forms  of  the  Church  Orders  vary  considerably.  But  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  possibility  of  such  a  theory  being  held  does  not 
imply  a  conception  of  ordination  different  from  that  held  in  modern 
times. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  133 

been  consecrated  by  many  bishops.  He  had  received  the 
testimony  of  nearly  all  the  clergy,  and  the  vote  of  all  the 
people  then  present,  and  the  consent  of  the  bishops  present. 
He  had  been  ordained  in  the  Church,  and  he  who  does  not 
preserve  the  unity  of  the  Church  has  no  true  ordination.1 

The  theology  that  lay  behind  the  rules  of  the  Church 
was  that  the  work  of  the  Church  is  the  work  of  God;  that 
He,  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  gives  His  Spirit. 
Ordination  was  sacramental.  It  had  been  so  from  the 
beginning;  but  the  nature  of  a  sacrament  is  shewn  when 
we  realize  that  the  essential  of  ordination  always  has  been 
prayer  with  the  laying  on  of  hands.  God  answers  the 
prayers  of  His  Church.  The  Church  orders  the  proper 
method  of  approaching  Him. 

V 

We  may  now  sum  up  the  conclusion  of  our  argument. 

We  have  described  and  analyzed  the  Catholic  Church  as 
it  appeared  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
Our  first  question  is,  What  is  the  origin  of  that  society,  of 
its  organization,  its  rules,  and  its  ministry  ?  There  have 
been  two  opposing  theories  about  it  which  we  must  reject. 

The  one  which  prevailed  in  the  early  Church  ascribed 
not  only  the  origin  but  also  the  form  of  the  society,  even 
down  to  minute  features,  to  the  work  of  the  Apostles. 
They,  it  was  believed,  had  laid  down  the  regulations  by 
which  it  was  governed  and  had  established  the  ministry 
through  which  it  was  maintained.  In  any  complete  sense 
this  belief  was  unfounded.  It  was  indeed  true,  as  we  shall 
emphasize,  that  there  was  a  continuous  development  from 
Apostolic  times,  and  that  the  root  and  origin  of  the  whole 
conception  lay  in  the  Apostolic  teaching,  but  that  was  all. 
The  documents  on  which  the  belief  rested  were  in  all  cases 
late  and  apocryphal.  They  embodied  the  customs  and 
ideals  of  the  times  when  they  were  written.  They  vary 
considerably  from  one  another.  Each  generation,  by  a 

1  Cyp.,  Ep.  lv.  8,  “Nec  habeat  ecclesiasticam  ordinationem  qui 
ecclesiae  non  tenet  unitatem.”  See  also  Ep.  lxvii.  4,  “  Ordinatio 
iusta  et  legitima  quae  omnium  suffragio  et  iudicio  fuerit  examinata.” 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 


134 

natural  habit  of  the  human  mind,  ascribed  the  Church  as 
he  conceived  it  to  its  Apostolic  founders.  But  these  con¬ 
ceptions  were  not  historical.  The  organization  of  the 
Catholic  Church  was  not  based  on  specific  Apostolic  rule. 

An  alternative  theory  is  one  which  is  presented  by  various 
German  writers,  and  has  been  adopted  to  a  certain  extent 
in  England.1  It  would  hold  that  the  Catholic  Church 
presented  to  us  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  was  not 
a  development,  but  a  perversion  of  primitive  Christianity, 
that  it  was  a  contamination  of  the  Gospel  teaching.  It  was 
Christianity  transformed  under  the  influence  of  the  Hellenic 
idea.  The  whole  of  this  development  should  be  discarded. 

If  the  argument  of  my  first  two  lectures  be  correct,  this 
theory  also  must  be  condemned  as  unsound.  The  Catholic 
Christianity  of  the  fourth  century  represents  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Christ  and  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  in  a  manner  adapted  to  the  Hellenic  world  of  the 
day.  Christ,  as  we  have  held,  created  the  Church  as  a 
visible  society.  He  instituted  ministry  and  sacraments. 
He  gave  authority  for  legislation  and  discipline.  These 
principles  the  Church  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  day. 
Undoubtedly  Hellenic  influence  came  in.  But  it  came  in 
as  a  principle  of  development,  not  of  perversion.  Chris¬ 
tianity,  as  the  religion  for  all  men,  has  adopted  freely  the 
thought  of  each  age,  responded  to  the  needs  of  each  time, 
and  has  learnt  the  fuller  meaning  of  its  message  by  the 
assistance  of  each  epoch  in  human  progress.  Catholicism 
was  a  development,  but  a  development  of  Gospel  elements. 
The  Church  was  potentially  Catholic  from  the  beginning; 
it  has  not  yet  attained  a  full  or  complete  Catholicity. 

The  creative  force  thus  during  all  this  period  lay  in  the 
Church  itself,  inspired  by  the  Spirit,  exercising  the  authority 
and  power  with  which  it  had  been  entrusted.  The 
beginning  was  the.  conditions  of  the  Apostolic  age,  a 
church  governed  by  a  body  of  presbyters  with  a  chairman. 
Starting  from  this  monepiscopacy  was  quickly  and  early 
developed.  Then  after  the  Apostles  had  passed  away 

1  See  particularly  the  articles  by  Schmiedel  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Biblica ;  Rudolph  Sohm,  Kirchenrecht  (Leipzig,  1892);  Harnack, 
Constitution  and  Law  of  the  Church  (E.T.,  London,  1910). 


THE  CHURCH  NOT  INFALLIBLE  135 

and  the  first  great  missionary  impulse  had  ceased,  the 
bishops  took  their  place  as  the  force  which  welded  the 
Church  together,  and  represented  the  corporate  authority 
of  the  whole  body.  In  the  Apostolic  period  appointment 
to  office  was  by  prayer  and  laying  on  of  hands,  performed 
in  the  name  of  the  Church  by  its  properly  appointed 
ministers.  This  principle  the  Church  inherited,  and  starting 
from  an  Apostolic  rule  built  up  the  custom  of  episcopal 
ordination ;  although  the  process  and  stages  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  we  are  unable  to  trace.  So  in  a  similar  way  other 
usages  of  the  Apostolic  Church  developed. 

And  this  authority  does  not  in  any  of  its  manifestations 
claim  any  infallibility.  What  impresses  us  is  the  great 
variety  of  rule  and  custom.  Again  and  again  documents 
and  theologians,  speaking  in  the  name  of  the  Church,  lay 
down  rules  inconsistent  with  existing  usage.  Two  instances 
may  be  mentioned:  the  recognition  of  heretical  baptism 
or  orders,  and  the  status  given  to  confessors.  On  both  the 
policy  of  the  Church  showed  remarkable  variations;  it  was 
long  before  a  decision  was  obtained,  and  then  it  did  not 
present  much  appearance  of  finality.  The  Apostolical 
Canons ,  for  example,  lay  down  “  that  those  who  are  either 
baptized  or  ordained  by  heretics  can  be  neither  Christians 
nor  clergymen.”1  This  opinion  has  no  real  weight,  but  it 
was  widely  held  after  conciliar  authority  had  decided  other¬ 
wise.  So  as  regards  confessors,  the  Church  Orders  which 
represent  the  usage  of  different  churches  at  different  times 
present  many  regulations  inconsistent  with  one  another. 
Sometimes  confessors  are  to  be  admitted  to  the  presbyterate 
without  ordination,  sometimes  they  are  to  be  ordained. 

To  what  extent  variations  in  custom  or  changes  in  policy 
extended  may  be  doubtful.  What  is  important  to  notice 
is  that,  although  the  customs  of  the  Church  were  believed 
to  be  of  Apostolic  origin,  the  principle  was  always  held  or, 
at  any  rate,  acted  on  that  it  was  the  business  of  the  Church 
to  declare  what  was  the  Apostolic  custom,  and  this  it  did 
with  great  boldness.  The  ultimate  principle  really  was  the 
well-being  of  the  society.  This  naturally  led  to  the  building 
up  of  a  dignified  system  of  Church  order,  but  also  to  the 

1  Apostolic  Canons,  68. 


136  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

recognition  of  the  fact  that  its  rules  existed  for  the  Church, 
and  not  the  Church  for  its  rules.  So  the  Catholic  Church 
always  at  that  time  exhibited  a  wise  absence  of  rigidity. 
Excessive  rigidity  was  the  tendency  of  heretical  bodies. 
The  Church  of  Rome  in  those  days,  in  marked  contrast  to  its 
later  attitude,  administered  the  rules  of  the  Church  with 
moderation  and  wisdom.  So  also,  as  we  shall  see,  did  St. 
Augustine;  so  also,  except  in  relation  to  the  rebaptism  of 
heretics,  did  Cyprian.  But  Tertullian,  Hippolytus,  Nova- 
tian,  Lucifer  of  Cagliari,  the  Donatists  are  alike  in  demand¬ 
ing  rigid  rules  and  unhumane  discipline  such  as,  if  widely 
imposed,  would  have  entirely  prevented  the  Church  from 
being  Catholic. 

The  fundamental  principle  which  seems  to  emerge  is 
that,  whether  we  look  at  the  process  of  development  or 
the  source  of  its  spiritual  ministrations,  it  is  the  Church 
which  is  supreme.  A  baptism  is  valid  because  it  is  the 
Baptism  of  the  Church,  whether  administered  within  or 
outside;  the  authority  of  a  bishop  comes  to  him  because 
it  is  conferred  by  the  Church  and  even  if  he  cease  to  be 
within  the  Church  he  can  still  perform  episcopal  functions 
because  he  does  not  lose  what  the  Church  has  given  him. 
It  is  to  the  Catholic  Church  that  the  Spirit  has  been  given, 
and  therefore  within  the  Church  alone  are  all  the  gifts 
and  blessings,  sacramental  and  other,  that  the  Spirit  gives. 

In  a  fine  passage  of  his  Apologia  Cardinal  Newman 
describes  the  way  in  which  the  primitive  Church  stirred 
his  imagination : 

“  With  the  Establishment  thus  divided  and  threat¬ 
ened,  thus  ignorant  of  its  true  strength,  I  compared 
that  fresh  vigorous  Power  of  which  I  was  reading  in 
the  first  centuries.  In  her  triumphant  zeal  on  behalf 
of  that  Primeval  Mystery,  to  which  I  had  had  so  great 
a  devotion  from  my  youth,  I  recognized  the  movement 
of  my  Spiritual  Mother.  *  Incessu  patuit  Dea.’  The 
self-conquest  of  her  Ascetics,  the  patience  of  her 
Martyrs,  the  irresistible  determination  of  her  Bishops, 
the  joyous  swing  of  her  advance,  both  exalted  and 
abashed  me.”1 

1  Newman,  Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua  (ed.  1385),  p.  31. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  CHURCH  137 

His  witness  is  true.  The  Church  in  her  first  ages  ex¬ 
hibited  a  swing  and  an  advance  which  has  not  always 
appeared  since.  There  was  a  boldness  and  a  confidence  in 
her  movements,  a  power  of  adapting  herself  to  any  circum¬ 
stances,  however  novel.  And  I  think  that  one  secret  of 
her  power  was  that,  though  always  true  to  her  traditions, 
she  never  allowed  the  dead  hand  of  the  past  to  spoil 
the  freedom  of  her  action.  We  have  always  a  double 
relation  to  the  past.  We  have  to  preserve  the  authority  of 
tradition,  and  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  ever  realize  the 
greatness  of  the  debt  that  we  owe  to  the  Oxford  Tractarians, 
and  above  all  to  Newman,  for  restoring  to  the  Christian 
Church — not  only  to  the  Church  of  England,  but  also  to 
the  Nonconformists,  indeed  to  the  Roman  Church  itself, 
which,  under  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  had  lost  much 
of  its  historical  sense — that  sense  of  historical  continuity 
which  is  the  true  meaning  of  Apostolical  succession,  the 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  in  all  ages  God’s  Spirit  has 
taught  the  Church  and  is  leading  us  into  all  truth,  that  we 
should  always  be  guarded  and  instructed  by  the  authority 
and  experience  of  past  generations  of  Christians.  There 
is  no  limit,  I  think,  to  the  debt  that  we  owe  to  those  who 
thus  restored  to  us  this  sense  of  the  continuity  and  tradition 
of  the  Church. 

But  we  have  not  only  to  link  ourselves  with  the  past  by 
using  its  teaching,  but  by  learning  its  spirit — its  spirit  of 
boldness  and  confidence,  the  spirit  which  taught  it  always  to 
adapt  itself  to  new  situations  and  deal  with  new  crises.  It 
was  loyal  to  the  past,  but  it  never  allowed  itself  to  be 
controlled  by  it.  It  is  the  absence  of  this  spirit  which  in 
later  days  in  great  crises  of  the  Church  prevented  it  from 
meeting  a  new  situation,  and  became  the  fruitful  cause  of 
dissension  and  disunion. 

It  is  just  this  same  boldness,  this  courage  to  take  a  new 
departure,  not  at  variance  with,  but  in  continuity  with,  the 
past,  that  is  necessary  for  us  at  the  present  day  if  we  are 
to  seize  the  opportunity  that  lies  before  us. 


LECTURE  IV 

THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

“  Endeavouring  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of 
peace.” — Eph.  iv.  3. 

St.  Augustine.  His  ignorance  of  Greek.  Effect  on  his  theology. 

His  doctrine  of  the  Church.  Its  source.  The  influence  of 
Cyprian.  His  own  personality.  The  Donatist  controversy. 

The  authority  of  the  Church.  The  home  of  Christian  charity. 
The  Church  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  Church  the  home  of  salva¬ 
tion.  Inconsistencies  in  St.  Augustine’s  teaching. 

His  arguments  against  the  Donatists.  The  unity  of  the  Church. 
Use  of  the  argument  by  Cardinal  Wiseman.  The  purity  of  the 
Church.  St.  Augustine’s  doctrine  of  the  ideal  Church.  The  ques¬ 
tion  of  rebaptism,  and  the  nature  of  the  Sacraments.  Re¬ 
ordination. 

The  nature  of  the  Christian  ministry.  The  Apostolical  Succession. 
The  ministry  and  the  Church.  The  character  indelibilis.  The  source 
both  of  evangelical  and  sacerdotal  conceptions. 

St.  Augustine  and  the  persecution  of  heretics.  The  custom  of  the 
times.  The  Circumcelliones.  His  early  opinions.  The  cause  of 
the  change.  His  tendency  to  mitigate  persecution.  Harmful 
results  of  his  teaching. 

The  authority  of  the  Church  and  infallibility.  No  bishop  or  Coun¬ 
cil  infallible.  The  Church  of  Rome.  St.  Peter  not  infallible.  The 
Church  of  Rome  no  power  to  dictate  to  other  churches.  Africa 
and  appeals  to  Rome.  The  authority  of  Christian  tradition.  Un¬ 
authorized  customs  harmful.  St.  Augustine’s  mediation. 

Conclusion.  Deductions  from  St.  Augustine’s  teaching.  His 
conception  of  the  Church.  The  ideal  and  the  visible.  Purity. 
Truth.  Unity.  The  ministry  and  Sacraments.  The  revision  of 
the  traditional  theory.  The  Church  and  Christian  charity. 

St.  Augustine1  in  his  Confessions  asks  the  question  why 
as  a  boy  he  hated  Greek,  and  gives  as  an  answer — the  sinful¬ 
ness  and  vanity  of  life.  He  was  ready  enough  to  read  the 

1  By  far  the  best  account  of  St.  Augustine  in  English  that  I  am 
acquainted  with  is  that  by  Bp.  Robertson  in  Murray’s  Dictionary  of 
Christian  Biography  and  Literature,  p.  70,  who  gives  a  sufficient 
bibliography.  For  his  doctrine  on  the  Church  see  the  same  writer’s 
Regnum  Dei ;  Reuter,  Augustinische  Studien ;  Harnack,  History  of 
Doctrine,  E.T.,  vol.  v.,  pp.  140-168.  Two  useful  modern  books  are 
The  Letters  of  St.  Augustine,  by  Dr.  Sparrow- Simpson,  and  Studies 
in  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  by  Dr.  Ottley. 

138 


IGNORANCE  OF  GREEK 


*39 


seductive  stories  of  mythology,  but  from  the  drudgery  of 
grammar  he  revolted.1  The  remorse  of  St.  Augustine  raises 
an  interesting  subject  of  discussion,  What  might  have  been 
the  development  of  Western  Christendom  if  he  had  known 
Greek  and  had  a  Greek  training  ?  To  him  Western  Christen¬ 
dom  has  owed  some  of  its  best  and  some  of  its  least  attrac¬ 
tive  features,  and  as  we  read  the  writings  of  this  intense 
African,  profoundly  imbued  with  Latin  culture,  but  learning 
his  Greek  philosophy  and  theology,  history  and  literature, 
through  the  medium  of  translations,  with  no  touch  of  the 
Greek  spirit,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  conscious  of  his  defects. 
We  admire  his  brilliant  dialectic,  his  subtle  logic,  his  over¬ 
flowing  eloquence.  But  his  logic  is  his  master  and  not  his 
servant.  He  has  no  humanism  to  correct  the  over-subtlety 
of  his  speculations.  He  often  fails  to  understand  the 
difference  between  the  real  and  the  rhetorical  argument-- 
No  taste  restrains  the  over-emphasis  of  his  style  or  corrects 
the  bitter  invective  into  which  he  cannot  help  falling.  He 
has  too  little  of  the  irndiceia,  of  the  sweet  ‘  reasonableness  * 
that  he  might  have  learnt  from  Plato,  which  would  have 
made  his  arguments  and  his  eloquence  so  much  more  con¬ 
vincing,  which  would  have  checked  his  over-emphasis  and 
repetitions  and  prevented  his  tediousness. 

And  as  with  his  style,  so  with  his  teaching.  How  different 
it  would  have  been  had  it  corrected  the  fieriness  of  the 
African  tradition  by  the  writings  of  Greek  theologians.  It 
might  have  helped  to  prevent  that  marked  divergence  in 
tone  and  temperament,  which  has  caused  such  a  deep 
division  between  Eastern  and  Western  Christendom.  It 
might  have  corrected  the  hardness  of  his  thought.  Some¬ 
times  it  seems  as  if  he  knows  no  compassion  and  will  make 

1  Confess.,  I.  xiii.  xiv.,  “Quid  autem  erat  causae,  cur  graecas  lit- 
teras  oderam,  quibus  puerulus  imbuebar,  ne  nunc  quidem  mihi 
satis  exploratum  est  .  .  .  unde  tamen  et  hoc  nisi  de  peccato  et 
vanitate  vitae,  qua  caroeram  et  spiritus  ambulans et  nonrevertens  ?” 
(See  also  Contra  Litteras  Petiliani  ii.,  §  91;  De  Trinitate  iii.,  §  1.) 
It  is  only  right  to  add  that  some  writers,  like  Reuter  {op.  cit.,  p.  170), 
are  of  opinion  that  St.  Augustine,  here  and  elsewhere,  has  exag¬ 
gerated  his  ignorance.  Whether  that  be  so  or  not  I  have  not 
sufficient  knowledge  to  say,  but  I  do  not  find  much  influence  of 
Greek  in  his  writings;  and  he  learnt  his  Neo-platonism  from  the 
translations  of  Victorinus  Afer. 


140  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

no  concession.  It  might  have  checked  the  tendency  to 
over-statement.  He  cannot  refrain  from  stating  his  pro¬ 
positions  in  their  most  rigid  form.  He  fails  to  see  the 
necessity  of  reconciling  two  extreme  and  inconsistent 
positions.  So  he  becomes  the  parent  of  the  Schoolman 
and  the  Calvinist,  of  extreme  protestantism,  of  extreme 
sacramentalism,  of  extreme  sacerdotalism,  of  papalism. 
Yet  his  aim  was  to  regulate  his  life  and  polity  on  the  basis 
of  Christian  charity.  The  source  of  his  greatness  was  his 
real  and  intense  Christianity:  the  source  of  his  defects  his 
absence  of  humanism. 

But  to-day  our  purpose  is  to  discuss,  not  his  general 
position,  but  his  doctrine  of  the  Church,  and  with  that  we 
must  now  start. 


I 

St.  Augustine’s  theory  of  the  Church  was  a  product  of 
three  main  influences.  It  was  in  its  origin  based  upon 
the  Western  doctrine  as  it  had  been  formulated  by  Cyprian, 
a  strong,  coherent,  narrow  theory,  the  work  of  an  able 
statesman  and  organizer,  who  would  never  allow  the 
weakness  of  human  nature,  or  we  may  add  Christian 
charity,  to  restrain  either  the  coherence  of  his  logic  or  the 
severity  of  his  discipline.  The  importance  of  Cyprian’s 
writings  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  were  not  only  the  source 
from  which  Augustine  had  learnt  his  own  doctrine,  but  were 
the  recognized  authority,  certainly  of  the  whole  African 
Church,  and  probably  of  the  larger  part  of  Western  Christen¬ 
dom.  The  Donatists  in  particular  claimed  to  be  (as  indeed 
in  many  respects  they  were)  the  true  disciples  of  the  great 
African  bishop,  and  a  large  part  of  Augustine’s  contro¬ 
versial  writings  against  them  is  devoted  to  shewing  that  in 
reality  Cyprian’s  authority  is  on  his  side.  Cyprian  had 
always  formulated  his  doctrine  with  a  rigidity  which  is 
attractive  to  a  certain  type  of  mind,  and  Augustine  (whose 
nature  was  very  different)  was  continually,  although  hardly 
consciously,  revolting  from  it. 

So,  in  the  second  place,  we  find  the  theory  of  Cyprian 
modified  by  St.  Augustine’s  personal  characteristics,  by  his 
theology,  and  his  character.  His  doctrine  of  Grace,  when 


THE  DON  ATI  STS 


141 

worked  out  to  its  logicalconclusion,  was  certainly  inconsistent 
with  a  purely  ecclesiastical  theory.1  There  were  other 
elements,  too,  which  influenced  him.  Unlike  Cyprian, 
St.  Augustine  took  no  real  interest  in  administrative 
questions.  He  was  a  theologian,  not  a  statesman.  He 
looked  on  the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  philosopher. 
His  platonism,  although  less  conspicuous  in  later  life,  never 
passed  away,  and  we  have  always  to  read  his  theories 
on  the  assumption  which  is  underlying  them,  that  whatever 
appears  in  the  world  is  only  an  imperfect  copy  of  the  reality. 
His  doctrine  of  God  was  always  trying  to  break  down 
the  narrow  views  which  the  current  ecclesiastical  system 
implied,  and  Christian  charity,  to  him  the  true  essence 
of  the  Gospel,  although  working,  as  it  so  often  does,  in  a 
strangely  inconsistent  way,  was  a  real  force.  All  these 
elements  were  potent  influences  in  transforming  the  current 
African  theology. 

A  third  main  influence  was  the  Donatist  schism,  which 
created  conditions  different  from  those  which  had  prevailed 
in  the  time  of  Cyprian,  and  had  a  curious  and  far-reaching 
influence  in  modifying  the  theology  of  the  Church.2  The 
characteristics  of  this  schism  must  occupy  us  a  few  moments. 
Its  origin  goes  back  to  the  time  of  the  great  persecution. 
On  the  death  of  Mensurius,  who  had  been  Bishop  of  Carthage 
during  that  period,  he  was  succeeded  in  the  year  a.d.  311  by 
his  archdeacon  Caecilian.  Caecilian  had  made  himself  con¬ 
spicuous  by  restraining  the  extravagant  devotion  which 
was  shewn  to  those  who  had  been,  or  claimed  to  have  been, 
martyrs,  and  his  appointment  roused  great  opposition. 
Amongst  the  bishops  who  had  taken  part  in  his  ordination 
was  Felix  of  Aptunga,  who  was  accused  of  having  been  a 
traditor — that  is,  one  who  had  given  up  copies  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  to  the  authorities  in  order  that  they  might  be 

1  See  Robertson,  Regnum  Dei,  p.  187. 

2  Of  the  Donatists  there  is  a  very  full  account  sub  voce  in  Smith’s 
Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  vol.  i.,  p.  881,  where  further 
references  are  given.  We  suffer  here  as  elsewhere  in  Christian 
history  by  having  no  account  of  the  schismatical  body  from  their 
own  side,  but  there  seems  enough  to  convince  us  that  the  Donatist 
position,  however  plausible,  was  really  impossible,  and  that,  what¬ 
ever  were  the  defects  of  the  other  side,  Donatism  exhibited  in  a 
remarkable  way  all  the  evils  of  sectarianism. 


142  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

destroyed.  This  was  made  an  excuse  for  objecting  to  the 
validity  of  Caecilian’s  appointment,  and  his  opponents 
proceeded  to  elect  a  rival  bishop.  The  first  of  these 
schismatic  prelates  was  a  man  of  little  importance,  but  he 
was  succeeded  by  Donatus,  called  by  his  friends  the 
“  Great,”  who  proved  a  strong  and  able  leader  and  gave 
his  name  to  the  sect. 

The  new  schism  spread  widely  throughout  Africa,  and 
created  a  situation  particularly  annoying  to  the  Emperor 
Constantine,  who  had  hoped  to  find  in  the  united  Christian 
Church  a  strong  support  of  his  government.  The  matters 
in  dispute  between  the  two  parties  were  first  of  all  referred 
to  a  Council  at  Rome,  held  in  313  under  the  Bishop  Miltiades, 
then  to  the  Council  of  Arles  in  314;  then,  when  the  Donatists 
were  still  unsatisfied,  and  appealed  to  the  civil  power,  they 
were  tried  before  Constantine  in  person.  On  all  occasions 
Caecilian  and  Felix  were  acquitted  of  the  charges  made 
against  them.  But  this  had  no  influence  on  their  opponents, 
who  became  the  more  confirmed  and  embittered  in  their 
opposition,  and  then  Constantine  had  recourse  to  the  fatal 
weapon  of  persecution,  a  persecution  which  did  more  than 
anything  else  to  fan  the  flames  of  revolt.  Donatism  became 
the  dominant  creed  of  Africa.  We  hear  on  one  occasion 
of  a  Council  of  310  bishops.  It  persisted  for  more  than  a 
century,  in  spite  of  a  logical  position  which  was  untenable, 
of  the  persecutions  to  which  it  was  exposed,  and  of  its  own 
intestine  dissensions  and  divisions. 

We  cannot  follow  the  unattractive  story  of  its  history,  and 
of  the  treatment  it  received,  but  there  are  certain  points 
with  regard  to  it  which  must  be  noticed.  In  the  first  place, 
it  was  clearly  a  schism  and  not  a  heresy.  On  every  point 
of  the  Catholic  faith  the  Donatists  were  orthodox.  On 
every  point  of  Church  organization  they  were  one  with  the 
Catholic  party.  They  had  the  same  hierarchy  and  the  same 
sacraments.1 

Secondly,  the  point  on  which  the  Donatists  parted  was 
ostensibly  that  of  the  purity  of  the  Church.  It  must  be  a 
church  which  was  purged  of  all  sinners.  There  must  be  no 
place  in  it  for  the  adulterer  or  the  apostate.  If  they  were 

1  Epist.  lxi.  2. 


THE  CIRCUMCELLIONES 


*43 

there  it  became  contaminated.  So  they  held  that  sacraments 
became  null  if  they  were  performed  by  anyone  on  whose 
character  there  was  a  moral  stain.  If  a  bishop,  or  even  his 
consecrator,  had  been  guilty  of  the  mild  form  of  apostasy 
implied  in  handing  over  Christian  documents  to  the  state, 
not  only  did  he  cease  to  be  in  any  real  way  a  member  of  the 
Church,  but  also  no  one  whom  he  consecrated,  and  no  one 
with  whom  he  communicated,  could  be  looked  upon  as  such. 
Consequently,  the  whole  Catholic  Church  in  Africa  had, 
through  the  sin  of  Felix,  the  consecrator  of  Caecilian,  ceased 
to  be  the  Church  at  all,  and  not  only  the  Church  in  Africa, 
but  the  Church  in  the  rest  of  the  world  which  communicated 
with  the  Catholic  Church  of  Africa. 

The  third  point  resulting  from  this  was  that  in  no  case 
could  the  baptism  or  orders  of  heretics  or  schismatics  be 
looked  upon  as  valid.  So  the  Donatist  party  rebaptized 
and  reordained  everyone  who  came  over  to  them  from  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  considered  that  the  buildings  of  the 
Catholics  were  polluted  and  required  purification  before 
they  could  use  them. 

There  was  a  fourth  characteristic  of  Donatism,  which 
serves  to  reveal  to  us  the. underlying  cause  of  the  schism  and 
the  reason  why  it  was  so  widespread.  There  arose  an 
extreme  section  of  the  sect — fanatics  who  bore  the  name  of 
Circumcelliones.  These  exhibited  an  equal  disregard  for 
their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  others.  They  wandered 
about  the  country  attacking  pagan  temples  in  order  that 
they  might  suffer  martyrdom  or  shewing  their  orthodox 
zeal  by  murdering  members  of  the  Catholic  party  and 
plundering  their  houses  and  churches.  The  temper  thus 
exhibited  is  significant.  It  suggests  the  real  nature  of  the 
whole  movement.  It  was  the  revolt  of  the  African  temper 
against  the  Roman  government:  the  one  appearing  under 
the  guise  of  the  orthodox  and  Catholic  Church,  oecumenical 
but  unsympathetic;  the  other  as  an  irrational  but  popular 
religious  movement.  We  find  a  similar  tendency  in  other 
parts  of  the  Christian  world.  The  Latin  and  Greek 
Churches  came  to  be  the  embodiment  of  the  centralized 
imperial  government.  Egypt,  Syria,  Africa,  strove  to 
attain  national  independence  under  the  guise  of  schism  or 


THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 


144 

heresy,  and  all  the  efforts  of  the  emperors  at  suppression 
only  increased  the  popular  devotion. 

The  combating  of  Donatism,  and  the  restoration  of 
Christian  unity,  were  the  chief  aim  of  the  early  years  of 
Augustine’s  episcopate,  and  in  his  efforts  to  attain  this 
end  he  profoundly  modified  the  accepted  conceptions  of 
church  order. 


II 

The  doctrine  of  the  Church  was  a  fundamental  point  in 
St.  Augustine’s  creed,  and  it  is  important  for  us  to  grasp 
what  it  means  for  him.  Let  us  start  with  the  famous 
statement  that  he  made  in  one  of  his  earlier  works,  that  he 
would  not  have  believed  in  the  Gospel  unless  the  authority 
of  the  Catholic  Church  had  moved  him.1  In  the  same 
treatise  he  defines  for  us  more  exactly  what  this  authority 
was.  What  had  impressed  him,  and  had  been  one  of  the 
strong  motive  influences  to  his  conversion,  had  been  the 
spectacle  of  the  Christian  Church  as  a  great  spiritual  force,  its 
miracles,  its  Christian  hope,  its  charity,  its  antiquity,  the 
long  tradition  of  the  apostolic  see  with  its  succession  un¬ 
interrupted  from  St.  Peter  to  the  present  bishop,  the  idea 
of  Catholicity — that  is,  of  the  one  Church  throughout  the 
world,  in  contrast  to  the  local  heresies — -the  bonds  of  faith 
and  brotherhood,  which  united  peoples  and  nations  together 
everywhere.2  Here  there  was  a  real  spiritual  force  different 
from  anything  else  that  he  knew.  It  was  a  visible  society, 

1  Cont.  Epist.  Fund.  6,  “Ego  vero  Evangelio  non  crederem  nisi 
me  Catholicae  Ecclesiae  commoveret  auctoritas.” 

2  Cont.  Epist.  Fund.  5,  “  In  catholica  Ecclesia  .  .  .  tenet  con- 
sensio  populorum  atque  gentium:  tenet  auctoritas  miraculis  in- 
choata,  spe  nutrita,  caritate  aucta,  vetustate  firmata:  tenet  ab 
ipsa  sede  Petri  apostoli,  cui  pascendas  oves  suas  post  resurrectionem 
Dominus  commendavit,  usque  ad  praesentem  episcopatum  suc- 
cessio  sacerdotum :  tenet  postremo  ipsum  Catholicae  nomen,  quod 
non  sine  caussa  inter  tarn  multas  haereses  sic  ista  Ecclesia  sola 
obtinuit,  ut  cum  omnes  haeretici  se  catholicos  dici  velint,  quaerenti 
tamen  peregrino  alicui,  ubi  ad  Catholicam  conveniatur,  nullus 
haereticorum  vel  basilicam  suam  vel  domum  audeat  ostendere. 
Ista  ergo  tot  et  tanta  nominis  Christiani  carissima  vincula  recte 
hominem  tenent  credentem  in  Catholica  Ecclesia,  etiam  si  propter 
nostrae  intelligentiae  tarditatem  vel  vitae  meritum  veritas  nondum 
se  apertissime  ostendat.” 


CHARITY  AND  UNITY 


145 

exhibiting  truth  and  faith  and  charity.  It  was  not  in  any 
special  way  its  organization  that  attracted  him.  He  does 
not  consider  it  to  be  an  infallible  body:  he  definitely,  as  we 
shall  see,  combats  such  an  idea.  It  was  the  city  of  God,  the 
visible  representative  of  Christ  on  earth. 

This  society  had  certain  special  and  important  charac¬ 
teristics.  It  was,  in  the  first  place,  the  home,  the  embodi¬ 
ment  of  Christian  charity.  Christian  unity  means  Christian 
charity.  Outside  the  Church  there  is  no  charity;  no  one 
can  possess  it  unless  he  loves  unity.  This  is  an  unfailing 
argument  of  St.  Augustine  against  the  Donatists.  They 
are  able  to  have  everything  else  in  Christianity  but  this. 
They  have  true  sacraments,  they  may  exhibit  the  most 
heroic  Christian  virtues,  yet  because  they  have  not  charity, 
as  St.  Paul  himself  teaches,  it  profiteth  them  nothing. 
Because  this  excellent  gift  is  only  found  in  the  Christian 
Church,  there  is  no  salvation  for  those  outside  it.1 

This  argument  is  hardly  one  which  appeals  to  us.  It 
seems  to  us  the  antithesis  of  everything  which  we  mean  by 
charity.  If  we  analyze  it,  it  is  something  like  the  following. 
The  Christian  Church  represents  a  real  effort  at  binding 
together  peoples  of  different  races  and  countries  in  a  higher 
and  more  spiritual  union.  This  was  a  matter  both  of 
observation  and  of  experience.  In  his  letters  St.  Augustine 
often  dwells  on  the  spiritual  union  he  can  feel  with  those 
whom  he  has  never  seen.  “  We  are  members  of  one  body, 
having  one  Head,  enjoying  the  effusion  of  the  same  grace, 

1  Contra  Cresconium  i.  34.  “  Non  autem  existimo  ita  quem- 

quam  desipere,  ut  credat  ad  ecclesiae  pertinere  unitatem  eum  qui 
non  habet  caritatem.,,  He  then  goes  on  to  argue  that  God,  faith, 
baptism,  all  exist  outside  the  Church,  but  there  they  are  without 
charity.  They  exist  outside  the  Church :  only  in  the  Church,  where 
they  are  united  with  charity,  have  they  any  healthy  effect. 

De  Bapt.  i.  14.  Separata  est  enim  a  uinculo  caritatis  et  pads, 
sed  iuncta  est  in  uno  baptismate. 

Ibid.  i.  10.  Caritate  uiolata  unitatis  uinculum  rumpunt. 

Ibid.  i.  12.  Those  who  are  separated  neque  studentes  seruare 
unitatem  spiritus  in  uinculo  pads,  caritatem  utique  non  habendo  .  .  . 
ad  aeternam  salutem  peruenire  non  possunt. 

Ibid.  iii.  21.  Non  autem  habet  Dei  caritatem,  qui  Ecclesiae  non 
diligit  unitatem. 

Contra  Litter  as  Petiliani  ii.  172.  Caritas  Christiana  nisi  in 
unitate  Ecclesiae  non  potest  custodiri,. 

Sermo  cclxv.  11.  Caritas  ista  non  tenetur  nisi  in  unitate  Ecclesiae. 


10 


146  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

living  by  the  same  bread,  walking  in  the  same  path,  and 
dwelling  in  the  same  house.  In  short,  in  all  that  makes  up 
our  being,  in  the  whole  faith  and  hope  by  which  we  stand 
in  the  present  life,  in  labour  for  that  which  is  to  come,  we 
are,  both  in  the  spirit  and  in  the  body,  so  united  that  if  we 
fall  from  this  union  we  shall  cease  to  be.”1 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Donatists  appeared  to  represent 
the  most  extravagant  form  of  the  sectarian  temper  which 
was  the  exact  antithesis  of  this.  As  schismatics,  they  had 
broken  just  that  bond  of  union  which  bound  all  Christians 
together.  How,  then,  it  might  be  asked,  could  they  have 
charity,  or  love,  or  brotherhood  ?  They  had  destroyed  the 
possibility  of  it.  All  schism  seemed  to  make  it  impossible. 
And  they  shewed  this.  They  would  have  no  dealings  with 
anyone  not  of  their  own  body.  They  were  ready  to  anathe¬ 
matize  the  whole  Catholic  Church  everywhere  in  the  world. 
They  refused  to  recognize  either  its  sacraments  or  its  orders. 
It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  all  schism  among  Christians  is 
a  breach  of  charity — although  often  both  sides  are  to  blame 
— and  St.  Augustine,  in  his  dealings  with  the  Donatists, 
exhibited  much  more  than  they  of  the  Christian  spirit ;  but  it 
shews  the  limitations  which  are  the  constant  conditions  of 
our  human  thought  that  he  never  seems  to  have  realized  how 
inconsistent  with  what  Christianity  really  meant  were  the 
violent  invectives  which  he  used  almost  with  the  same  breath 
with  which  he  claimed  the  monopoly  of  Christian  charity, 
and  how  intolerable  it  really  was  to  think  (as  he  did)  that 
the  most  virtuous  and  pious  heretic  could  not  possibly 
attain  salvation. 

A  second  characteristic  of  St.  Augustine’s  theology  is 
that  he  identified  the  Church  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
He  did  it  most  conspicuously  in  his  great  work,  De  Civitate 
Dei ,  in  which  he  contrasts  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  with  the 
kingdom  of  the  world,  and  shews  how  the  overthrow  of  the 
Roman  Empire  has  meant  the  growth  of  this  spiritual  power. 
We  must  understand  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  he  says,  in 
two  senses — in  the  one  sense  in  which  both  he  who  breaks 
and  he  who  keeps  the  commandments  belong  to  it,  in  the 
other  sense  in  which  it  contains  only  those  who  obey. 

1  Aug.  Epist.  xxx.  2  (E.T.). 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  KINGDOM 


147 

“  Where  both  classes  exist,  it  is  the  Church  as  it  now  is,  but 
where  only  the  one  shall  exist,  it  is  the  Church  as  it  is  destined 
to  be  when  no  wicked  person  shall  be  in  her.  Therefore 
the  Church  even  now  is  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  and  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Accordingly,  even  now  His  saints 
reign  with  Him,  though  otherwise  than  as  they  shall  reign 
hereafter;  and  yet,  though  the  tares  grow  in  the  Church 
along  with  the  wheat,  they  do  not  reign  with  Him.  For 
they  reign  with  Him  who  do  what  the  Apostle  says,  ‘  If  ye 
be  risen  with  Christ,  mind  the  things  which  are  above,  where 
Christ  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  Seek  those  things 
which  are  above,  not  the  things  which  are  on  the  earth.’ 
Of  such  persons  he  also  says  that  their  conversation  is  in 
heaven.  In  fine,  they  reign  with  Him  who  are  so  in  His 
Kingdom  that  they  themselves  are  His  Kingdom.”1 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  conception  of  the  Church 
as  the  Kingdom  had  a  far-reaching  influence  in  building  up 
the  Medieval  Church  as  a  world  power.  Probably  all  the 
great  men  who  accomplished  that  received  from  Augustine 
the  spiritual  justification  of  a  movement  which  was  largely 
the  result  of  the  needs  of  society.  But  such  a  conception 
as  that  was  alien  to  his  mind.  He  was  not  a  statesman. 
He  did  not  think  of  the  Church  as  a  worldly  power.  He 
would  have  been  one  of  the  ardent  opponents  of  the  growth 
of  the  papacy.  He  thinks,  indeed,  that  the  rulers  of  the 
Church  are  already  judging,  but  it  is  the  spiritual  judgement 
which  is  explained  by  the  words,  “  What  ye  bind  on  earth 
shall  be  bound  in  heaven.”  It  is  a  judgement  in  which  the 
wicked  can  take  no  part,  a  judgement  which  means  a 
spiritual  life.2 

St.  Augustine’s  conception,  indeed,  was  always  religious 
and  philosophical.  Christianity  and  Plotinus  had  alike 
taught  him  that  the  only  true  reality  was  God,  and  all  human 
and  earthly  life  was  but  an  imperfect  copy  of  the  heavenly. 

1  De  Civitate  Dei  xx.  9  (E.T.).  On  the  Church  as  the  Kingdom 
of  God  see  especially  Robertson,  Regnum  Dei,  169  sq. 

2  He  deduces  this  from  the  words,  “  And  I  saw  seats  and  them 
that  sat  upon  them,  and  judgement  was  given.”  “It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  this  refers  to  the  last  judgement,  but  to  the  seats  of 
the  rulers  and  to  the  rulers  themselves  by  whom  the  Church  is  now 
governed  ”  (De  Civitate  Dei,  loc ,  cit.). 


148  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

His  conception  of  the  Christian  state  would  be  a  kingdom 
not  of  this  world.  It  would  not  be  an  organized  Church  that 
would  succeed  the  Roman  Empire  as  a  great  world  power, 
but  the  reign  of  the  saints  in  love.  The  Civitas  Dei  was  the 
copy  of  heaven  on  earth.  It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
results  of  the  influence  of  St.  Augustine’s  writings  that  they 
should  have  had  the  effect  of  being  one  of  the  most  potent 
forces  in  building  up  a  conception  of  the  Christian  state 
quite  inconsistent  with  his  ideals. 

Then,  thirdly,  St.  Augustine  looked  upon  the  Church  as 
the  home  of  salvation.  He  had  inherited  from  Cyprian  the 
maxim  that,  “  there  is  no  salvation  outside  the  Church.” 
And  this  and  similar  statements  occur  with  great  frequency 
in  his  writings,  especially  in  those  directed  against  the 
Donatists.  He  connected  it,  indeed,  with  his  own  more 
spiritual  theory  of  the  Church,  for  he  argued  that  as  a  man 
could  not  be  saved  without  charity,  and  as  there  was  no 
charity  except  in  the  unity  of  the  Church,  no  man  could  be 
saved  except  in  the  Church.1  So  far  does  he  carry  this 
that  he  writes:  “  Let  us  suppose  someone,  therefore,  chaste, 
continent,  free  from  covetousness,  no  idolater,  hospitable, 
ministering  to  the  needy,  no  man’s  enemy,  not  contentious, 
patient,  quiet,  jealous  of  none,  envying  none,  sober,  frugal, 
but  a  heretic;  it  is  of  course  clear  to  all  that  for  this  one 
fault  only,  that  he  is  a  heretic,  he  will  fail  to  inherit  the 
Kingdom  of  God.”2 

1  He  has  no  part  in  Christ  who  does  not  belong  to  the  Church 
which  is  the  body  of  Christ. 

Epistula  ad  Catholicos  (often  called  De  XJnitate  Ecclesiae).  §  7. 
Totus  Christus  caput  et  corpus  est:  caput  unigenitus  Dei  filius  et 
corpus  eius  ecclesia,  sponsus  et  sponsa,  duo  in  carne  una.  Quicumque 
de  ipso  capite  a  scripturis  sanctis  dissentiunt,  etiamsi  in  omnibus  locis 
inueniantur  in  quibus  ecclesia  designata  est,  non  sunt  in  ecclesia,  et 
rursus  quicumque  de  ipso  capite  scripturis  sanctis  consentiunt  et 
unitati  ecclesiae  non  communicant,  non  sunt  in  ecclesia. 

Ibid.,  §  49.  Ad  ipsam  uero  salutem  ac  uitam  aeternam  nemo 
peruenit  nisi  qui  habet  caput  Christum.  Habere  autem  caput 
Christum  nemo  poterit  nisi  qui  in  eius  corpore  fuerit,  quod  est 
ecclesia. 

2  De  Bapt.  iv.  25.  Constituamus  ergo  aliquem  castum,  con- 
tinentem,  non  auarum,  non  idolis  seruientem,  hospitalem,  indigenti- 
bus  ministrantem,  non  cuiusquam  inimicum,  non  contentiosum, 
patientem,  quietum,  nullum  aemulantem,  nulli  inuidentem, 
sobrium,  frugalem  haereticum:  nulli  utique  dubium  est  propter  hoc 
solum  quod  haereticus  est  regnum  Dei  non  possessurum. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  ELECT 


149 


Such  was  his  teaching,  but  the  whole  influence  of  his 
theology  was  to  break  down  this  crude  theory.  It  was,  in  the 
first  place,  entirely  inconsistent  with  his  doctrine  of  Grace. 
The  Cyprianic  idea  and  that  of  the  ordinary  Catholic  was 
that  there  was  a  definite,  well-organized  society  in  the  world, 
and  that  no  one  who  did  not  belong  to  it  could  be  saved. 
And  something  very  like  the  converse  would  have  generally 
been  considered  reasonable :  if  a  man  was  a  good  Catholic, 
who  used  his  means  of  grace  and  had  never  been  excom¬ 
municated  for  deadly  sins,  he  would  be  saved.  But  St. 
Augustine’s  main  conception  was  that  of  the  elect,  of  those 
who  were  foreknown  and  predestinated  of  God,  for  whose 
salvation  God  was  working.  There  were  many  in  the  Church 
to  whom  the  gift  of  final  perseverance  was  not  given;  there 
were  others  outside  the  Church  who  might  really  be  amongst 
the  called.  This  conception  of  the  elect  was  really  incon¬ 
sistent  with  the  Cyprianic  form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  visible 
Church. 

So  St.  Augustine  emphasizes  the  fact  that  those  in  the 
Church  who  were  not  the  elect  might  fall.  Some  there  were 
in  the  house  of  God  in  such  a  way  that  they  might  be  called 
the  house  of  God,  which  is  built  upon  the  rock.  But  others 
were  in  the  house,  who  did  not  belong  to  its  structure  nor 
to  the  society  of  fruitful  and  pacific  righteousness.1  There 
were  many  in  the  communion  of  the  sacraments  with  the 
Church  who  were  not  in  the  Church.2  On  the  other  hand, 
the  reverse  also  was  true.  In  the  ineffable  foreknowledge  of 
God  many  who  seem  to  be  without  are  really  within,  and 
many  who  seem  to  be  within  are  really  without.3  The  truly 
spiritual  men,  in  fact,  who,  through  some  human  perversity 
or  the  power  of  circumstances,  appear  to  be  expelled  from 

1  De  Bapt.  vii.  99.  Puto  me  non  temere  dicere  alios  ita  esse 
in  domo  Dei,  ut  et  ipsi  etiam  sint  eadem  domus  Dei  quae  dicitur 
aedificari  super  petram,  quae  unica  columba  appellatur  .  .  .  alios 
autem  ita  dico  esse  in  domo,  ut  non  pertineant  ad  conpagem  domus 
nee  ad  societatem  fructiferae  pacificaeque  iustitiae. 

2  Epistula  ad  Catholicos,  §  74.  Multi  tales  sunt  in  sacramen- 
torum  communione  cum  ecclesia  et  tamen  iam  non  sunt  in  ecclesia. 

3  De  Bapt.  v.  38.  Namque  in  ilia  ineffabili  praescientia  Dei  multi 
qui  foris  uidentur  intus  sunt  et  multi  qui  intus  uidentur  foris  sunt. 
Ex  illis  ergo  omnibus,  qui  ut  ita  dicam  intrinsecus  et  in  occulto 
intus  sunt,  constat  ille  hortus  conclusus,  tons  signatus,  puteus 
aquae  uiuae,  paradisus  cum  fructu  pomorum. 


150  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

the  Church,  prove  their  worth  even  better  than  if  they 
remain  within,  for  they  never  shew  any  enmity  against  the 
Church  but  are  rooted  in  the  solid  rock  of  unity  and  Christian 
charity.1  Whether  they  are  within  or  without,  whatsoever 
is  flesh  is  flesh,  and  what  is  chaff  is  chaff. 

In  a  well-known  letter  St.  Augustine  argues  against  those 
who  asked,  What  has  happened  to  good  people  before  the 
time  of  Moses  or  of  Christ  ?  that  “  from  the  beginning  of 
the  human  race,  whoever  believed  in  Him,  and  in  any  way 
knew  Him,  and  lived  in  a  pious  and  just  manner  according 
to  His  precepts,  was  undoubtedly  saved  by  Him,  in  whatever 
time  or  place  he  may  have  lived.”2 

Nor,  finally,  are  heretics  entirely  separated  from  the 
Church.  They  are  joined  with  it  in  everything  that  they 
share  with  it.3  The  Church,  in  fact,  recognized  everything 
that  is  good  in  those  that  have  separated.4  Though  they 
are  severed  from  the  bond  of  peace  and  charity,  they  are 
one  in  baptism.6 

Now  we  may  not  be  quite  certain  how  far  these  passages 
are  to  be  pressed,  but  it  is  obvious  that  they  are  inconsistent 
with  the  strict  interpretation  of  the  Cyprianic  doctrine,  or, 
at  any  rate,  prepare  the  way  for  a  less  harsh  rule.  Yet 
St.  Augustine  never  makes  the  reconciliation — the  two  sets 
of  passages  may  be  found  almost  side  by  side.  Sometimes 
he  seems  to  suggest  that  all  those  who  are  finally  to  be  called 
will  ultimately  attain  to  the  visible  communion  on  earth. 
There  comes  a  point  in  anyone’s  argument  when  he  raises 
questions  of  which  he  cannot  give  a  solution.  As  we  read 
him  we  feel  that  St.  Augustine  had  carried  his  arguments 

1  De  Bapt.  i.  26.  Spiritales  autem  siue  ad  hoc  ipsum  pio  studio 
proficientes  non  eunt  foras,  quia  et  cum  aliqua  uel  peruersitate  uel 
necessitate  hominum  uidentur  expelli,  ibi  magis  probant  quam  intus 
permaneant,  cum  aduersus  ecclesiam  nullatenus  eriguntur,  sed  in 
solida  unitatis  petra  fortissimo  caritatis  robore  radicantur. 

2  Epist.  cii.  12  (E.T.). 

3  De  Bapt.  i.  10.  Heretics  are  joined  to  the  Church  in  everything 
they  share  with  it.  “  Si  uero  nonnulla  eadem  faciunt,  non  se  in  eis 
separauerunt  et  ex  ea  parte  in  texturae  conpage  detinentur,  in  cetera 
scissi  sunt.” 

4  Ibid.  i.  9.  Illud  autem  quod  sanum  maneret  agnitum  potius 
adprobaretur  quam  inprobatum  uulneraretur. 

6  Ibid.  i.  14.  Separata  est  enim  a  uinculo  caritatis  et  pacis,  sed 
iuncta  est  in  uno  baptismate. 


UNITY 


I5i 

and  his  analysis  farther  than  anyone  in  his  own  day,  and 
in  doing  so  had  suggested  thoughts  which  became  fertile 
in  other  minds  in  the  future.  It  is  significant,  however, 
that,  as  it  is  said,  he  never  in  an  anti-Pelagian  treatise 
quotes  the  statement  that  there  is  no  salvation  outside  the 
Church.1  If  this  be  so,  it  is  a  sign  that  probably  uncon¬ 
sciously  he  was  beginning  to  feel  the  inconsistency  of  his 
doctrines  of  Grace  and  of  the  Church,  and  thus  preparing 
for  further  development. 

We  have  seen  how  on  the  one  side  the  men  who  created 
the  medieval  papacy  could  draw  from  his  writings  their 
inspiration.  On  the  other  side  it  is  quite  easy  to  find  in  him 
the  theory  of  the  invisible  Church  as  it  was  developed  by 
the  reformers.  But  there  is  no  probability  that  he  ever 
held  such  a  conception.  To  him  the  only  Church  on  earth 
was  the  visible  Church,  the  society  that  bore  that  name  and 
was  so  well  known.  Like  everything  else  on  earth,  it  was  im¬ 
perfect  :  the  true  Church  was  the  Church  which  is  in  heaven, 
and  everything  which  could  be  said  only  imperfectly  of  the 
Church  on  earth  really  applied  to  the  great  society  of  the 
saints  which  should  reign  hereafter. 

Ill 

If  such  was  St.  Augustine’s  theory  of  the  Church,  it  may 
readily  be  understood  how  painful  to  him  was  such  a 
division  as  the  existence  of  Donatism  implied.  He  was  not, 
like  a  Cyprian,  a  statesman  or  a  practical  organizer  or  a 
disciplinarian.  He  had  none  of  the  desire  of  commonplace 
minds  to  impose  a  uniform  system  of  worship  and  life  on 
the  Church.  The  authority  of  Catholic  bishops  or  presbyters 
as  such  did  not  much  concern  him.  But  the  unity  of  the 
Church  was  to  him  essential.  If  we  remember  that  the 
authority  of  the  Christian  religion,  the  practice  of  Christian 
charity,  and  the  attainment  of  salvation  all  depended  (as 
he  believed)  upon  preserving  “  unity,”  we  shall  understand 
that  no  exertion,  no  sacrifice  of  what  was  not  a  matter  of 
principle,  could  be  too  great  for  him  to  make  to  attain  it. 
He  was  prepared  to  make  it  easy  for  the  Donatists  to  return 

1  See  Reuter,  op.  cit.,  p.  25. 


152  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

to  the  Church,  and  by  doing  so  he  quite  unconsciously 
caused  a  profound  change  in  the  theory  of  the  ministry. 

His  fundamental  argument  against  them  was  that  based 
on  the  unity  and  catholicity  of  the  Church.  They  were 
a  community  entirely  confined  to  Africa,  although  they  made 
great  efforts  to  establish  a  church  in  Rome.  Yet  they 
claimed  to  be  the  Catholic  Church.  Against  that  claim 
St.  Augustine  appealed  to  what  might  seem  to  be  the  real 
facts  of  the  case.  They  were  confined  to  one  small  portion 
of  the  civilized  world:  the  Catholic  Church  which  they 
condemned  was  spread  throughout  the  whole  world.  In 
particular,  against  them  was  the  authority  of  the  great 
Apostolic  sees.  There  was  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  where 
the  preaching  of  Christianity  first  began.  There  were  all 
the  great  Churches  of  the  East  to  which  the  letters  of  the 
Apostles  had  been  written.  How  could  they  claim  to  be 
the  Church  founded  by  the  Apostles  when  they  were  out 
of  communion  with  the  very  churches  which  the  Apostles 
founded  ?  How  could  they  be  the  true  Church  if  they  were 
out  of  communion  with  the  great  Apostolic  see  of  the  West 
which  preserved  the  succession  of  bishops  going  back  to 
St.  Peter  ? 

“  Ask,  0  ye  Donatists,  if  ye  know  not,  ask  how  many 
stopping-places  there  were  in  the  Apostle’s  journey  from 
J erusalem  round  about  unto  Illyricum.  Add  up  the  number 
of  the  churches,  and  tell  me  how  they  have  perished  through 
our  African  strife.  Corinth,  Ephesus,  Philippi,  Thessalonica, 
Colossae — you  have  only  the  letters  of  the  Apostle  to  read 
which  he  addressed  to  them;  we  read  the  letters,  we  preserve 
the  faith,  we  are  in  communion  with  the  churches.”1 

This  argument  is  pressed  home  by  Augustine  with  much 
force,  and,  whatever  limitations  it  may  have,  it  had  great 
weight.  It  was  really  impossible  to  argue  seriously  that 
because  Caecilian,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  had  been  ordained  by 
a  traditor,  therefore  a  hundred  years  afterwards  the  church 
at  Jerusalem  was  a  schismatic  body.  But  we  must  dwell 
on  this  point  at  somewhat  greater  length,  for  it  has  a  par¬ 
ticular  interest  for  us  here.  The  argument  of  St.  Augustine 

1  Epistula  ad  Catholicos  ( De  Unitate  Ecclesiae )  xii.  31.  This  is 
the  argument  of  the  whole  treatise. 


ROME  AND  ENGLAND 


153 


against  the  Donatists  was  used  by  Cardinal  Wiseman  against 
Newman  and  the  Oxford  movement  and  undoubtedly  had 
considerable  influence  in  weakening  Newman’s  hold  on  the 
Anglican  position,  and  promoting  his  secession  to  the 
Church  of  Rome.1  Looking  back  now  on  the  two  contro¬ 
versies,  it  becomes  apparent  how  different  really  was  the 
situation  in  Oxford  in  1839  from  the  situation  in  Africa 
in  390.  In  the  first  place,  the  Donatists  claimed  to  be 
the  one  Church  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  They  were 
ready  to  deny  the  title  of  Church  to  the  whole  Catholic 
community  throughout  the  world,  and  to  confine  its  members 
to  their  own  little  society  in  Africa.  The  claim  of  Newman 
was  only  that  the  Church  to  which  he  belonged  had  an  equal 
right  with  others  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  part  of  the  true 
Church. 

The  second  point  of  difference  was  even  more  weighty. 
The  Church  of  Rome,  which  claims  to  be  the  only  true 
Church,  would  have  just  the  same  difficulty  in  justifying  its 
position  on  St.  Augustine’s  principles  as  the  Church  of 
England,  for  it  has  to  explain  how  that  can  be  the  true 
Church  which  is  out  of  communion  with  all  the  churches 
of  the  East,  the  representatives  in  the  present  day  of  those 
bodies  to  which  the  Apostles  had  written  their  letters.  It 
must  be  recognized,  and  it  will  become  apparent  as  we  go  on, 
that  ever  since  the  disunion  of  East  and  West  the  whole 
situation  as  regards  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  the  question 
where  the  true  Church  lies  has  been  profoundly  altered. 
The  Church  is  divided.  No  one  body  can  claim  to  be  the 
only  true  Church,  neither  Rome  nor  Constantinople;  and 
if  that  be  so,  no  merely  controversial  argument  like  that  of 
Cardinal  Wiseman  can  exclude  the  Church  of  England  from 
that  title. 

In  the  condition  of  the  time,  St.  Augustine’s  argument 
had  a  large  measure  of  force.  The  contention  of  the 
Donatists  that  they  were  the  only  true  Church  was,  in  fact, 
ridiculous.  But  even  then  it  was  not  true  that  they  alone 

1  Cardinal  Wiseman’s  article  appeared  in  the  Dublin  Review, 
August,  1839,  p.  139,  and  is  reprinted  in  Essays  on  Various  Subjects. 
By  His  Eminence  Cardinal  Wiseman  (London,  1853),  vol.  ii.,  p.  201. 
It  is  admirably  dealt  with  by  T.  A.  Lacey,  Catholicity,  pp.  141-T43. 


154  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

were  guilty  in  the  matter  of  schism  or  breach  of  charity. 
And  the  contention  that  they  had  in  no  sense  the  right  to 
the  title  of  Church  could  not  really  be  justified,  and,  in  fact, 
caused  misgivings  even  to  St.  Augustine. 

The  second  point  with  which  St.  Augustine  had  to  deal 
was  that  of  the  purity  of  the  Church.  The  Donatists 
contended  that  a  Church  became  contaminated  because  it 
contained  those  who  had  been  faithless,  and  in  particular 
because  its  clergy  were  immoral  in  their  lives  or  had  been 
guilty  of  apostasy.  They  further  maintained  that  any 
Church  which  communicated  with  a  Church  so  contaminated 
became  itself  contaminated,  and  ceased  therefore  to  be  the 
true  Church.  St.  Augustine  is  able  to  point  out  how  im¬ 
possible  was  the  situation  thus  created.  They  had  made 
the  experiment  and  had  found  that  the  ideal  could  not  be 
carried  out.  There  were  those  in  their  own  body  who  had 
been  guilty  of  various  heinous  offences:  had  their  Church 
become  contaminated  or  untrue,  because  they  had  com¬ 
municated  with  them  ?  They  appealed  to  Cyprian,  but  we 
can  learn  from  the  letters  of  Cyprian  that  there  were  in  his 
day  bishops  guilty  of  serious  moral  offences:  had  they 
made  the  Church  of  Cyprian’s  time,  to  which  the  Donatists 
so  constantly  appealed,  an  impure  one,  and  therefore  no 
Church  ?  If  that  were  so,  then  the  Donatists,  who  claimed 
that  theirs  was  the  Church  of  Cyprian,  were  themselves  not 
a  Church.  The  situation  is  indeed  impossible.  Ever  since 
the  beginning  of  Christianity  there  have  always  been  those 
who,  sometimes  perhaps  in  a  censorious  spirit,  sometimes 
from  a  real  desire  for  purity,  have  made  their  ideal  a  pure 
Church,  and  have  tried  to  attain  it  by  refusing  to  communi¬ 
cate  with  those  who  do  not  come  up  to  their  particular 
standard.  They  have  always  failed.  To  use  the  well- 
known  language,  the  wheat  and  the  tares  have  to  grow 
together  until  the  harvest.  We  cannot  distinguish  them 
one  from  another.  To  attempt  to  substitute  the  judgement 
of  man  on  earth  for  the  judgement  of  God  will  always  end 
in  disaster.1 

1  De  Bapt.  i.  5.  Non  esse  catholicam  ecclesiam  nisi  earn  quae, 
sicut  promissa  est,  toto  terrarum  orbe  diffunditur  et  extenditur 
usque  ad  fines  terrae,  quae  crescens  inter  zizania  et  in  taedio  scandal- 


the  holiness  of  the  church 


155 

But  St.  Augustine’s  own  point  of  view  ultimately  took 
him  deeper,  for  he  was  always  thinking  of  the  Church  on 
earth  as  the  imperfect  copy  of  the  Church  in  heaven,  so  he 
tells  us  in  his  Retractations  that  whenever  he  speaks  of  the 
Church  “without  spot  or  wrinkle/’  he  means  the  Church,  not 
as  it  is,  but  as  it  will  be.  Now  on  account  of  the  infirmity 
and  ignorance  of  its  members  it  has  each  day  to  pray, 
“Forgive  us  our  sins.”* 1  The  Donatist  and  the  ordinary 
Catholic  alike  would  have  argued:  “  Either  the  Church  is 
holy  or  it  is  not;  if  it  is  not,  how  do  you  account  for  the 
language  of  St.  Paul?” — and  each  would  have  made  the 
appropriate  deduction:  the  Donatist  that  his  only  was  the 
true  Church;  the  Catholic  that  he  was  really  holy  because 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Church.  St.  Augustine  knows  that 
such  hard-and-fast  alternatives  are  not  possible  here.  The 
Church  on  earth  is  holy  because  it  is  continually  striving 
to  realize  the  heavenly  ideal  of  holiness. 

It  was  this  doctrine  of  the  pure  Church  which  created  the 
teaching  of  the  Donatists  with  regard  to  the  validity  of 
sacraments.  They  had  claimed  that  Caecilian  was  not  a 
proper  bishop  because  one  of  his  consecrators  had  been  a 
traditor,  and,  following  the  same  argument,  they  maintained 
that  no  baptism  conferred  outside  the  Church  by  one  who 
was  a  heretic  or  schismatic  could  possibly  be  valid.  So  they 
rebaptized  and  reordained  any  who  came  over  to  them 
from  the  Catholic  Church.  In  much  of  this  they  had  or 
thought  they  had  Christian  tradition  on  their  side.  They 
certainly  had  Cyprian,  under  whose  guidance  the  African 
Church  had  refused  to  admit  the  baptism  of  heretics.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  had  become  recognized  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  Christian  world,  though  certainly  not 
everywhere,  that  any  baptisms  conferred  in  the  name  of  the 


orum  requiem  futuram  desiderans  dicit  in  psalmis :  a  finibus  terrae 
ad  te  exclamaui,  cum  taederet  anima  mea  :  in  petra  exaltasti  me.  The 
argument  is  used  with  the  greatest  frequency. 

1  Retract.  II.  xviii.  Ubicumque  autem  in  his  libris  commemoravi 
Ecclesiam  non  habentem  maculam  aut  rugam,  non  sic  accipiendum 
est  quasi  iam  sit,  sed  quae  preparatur  ut  sit  quando  apparebit 
etiam  gloriosa.  Nunc  enim  propter  quosdam  ignorantias  et  in- 
firmitates  membrorum  suorum,  habet  unde  quotidie  tota  dicat: 
Dimitte  nobis  debita  nostra. 


156  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

Trinity,  whether  by  schismatics  or  heretics,  were  to 
be  recognized  as  valid.  The  same  principle  gradually 
came  to  prevail  with  regard  to  ordination.  Any  orders 
conferred  according  to  the  rule  of  the  Church,  whether 
within  it  or  without,  were  to  be  recognized  as  validly 
conferred. 

To  the  question  of  rebaptism,  Augustine  devotes  much 
argument,  and  it  is  only  possible  to  touch  on  the  main 
principles.  He  points  out  that  any  teaching  which  main¬ 
tained  that  sacraments  depend  on  either  the  character  or 
the  faith  of  the  minister  must  inevitably  produce  a  state  of 
complete  uncertainty  as  to  whether  in  any  case  a  sacrament 
has  been  validly  administered.  If  it  must  needs  be  that  the 
performer  of  the  ceremony  is  worthy,  how  about  all  those 
unworthy  bishops  in  the  Church  of  whom  Cyprian  speaks  ? 
Supposing  that  we  find  that  the  bishop  who  baptized  us  had 
been  guilty  of  secret  sin,  shall  we  then  hold  that  we  were 
not  properly  baptized  ?  Supposing  we  find  that  the  bishop 
who  baptized  us  really  held  heretical  opinions,  will  it  make 
our  baptism  of  none  effect  ?  That,  if  proved,  would  lead  to 
an  impossible  conclusion.  No  one’s  baptism  would  be  safe. 
If,  then,  the  doubtful  morals  or  the  dubious  faith  of  one 
within  the  Church  does  not  do  away  with  the  effects  of 
baptism  in  the  Church,  why  should  the  fact  that  a  man 
is  a  schismatic  or  heretic  make  it  of  no  avail  ?  Clearly 
the  baptism,  if  properly  administered,  is  a  true  baptism 
anywhere. 

And  the  reason  of  this  is  that  the  baptism  is  not  the 
baptism  of  the  individual,  whether  bishop  or  layman,  who 
performs  the  ceremony:  it  is  the  baptism  of  the  Church. 
The  office  of  the  baptizer  is  purely  ministerial,  for  it  is  not 
he  but  Christ  who  baptizes.  Even  if  there  be  among 
Christians  rulers  or  ministers  who  are  dead  in  their  sins, 
yet  He  lives  of  whom  it  is  said  in  the  Gospel :  '  ‘  He  it  is  who 
baptizeth.”1  So  the  sacrament  was  one,  whether  it  was 
conferred  without  or  within  the  Church,  and  the  grace  of 

1  Cont.  Parmenianum  ii.  22.  Quapropter  etsi  apud  Christianos  sunt 
aliqui  praepositi  uel  ministri  per  iniquitatem  et  impietatem  suam 
mortui,  uiuit  tamen  ille  de  quo  dictum  est  in  euangelio:  “hie  est  qui 
baptizat.” 


HERETICAL  BAPTISM 


157 

the  sacrament  was  given  because  the  real  minister  of 
baptism  was  Christ.  So,  provided  the  sacrament  was 
properly  administered,  a  baptism  was  really  valid  whether 
it  was  a  priest  or  a  layman,  a  Catholic  or  a  heretic,  who  per¬ 
formed  the  ceremony — nay,  even  Augustine  raises  the 
question  whether  it  was  not  possible  for  a  pagan  to  baptize — 
but  this,  he  says,  a  General  Council  must  settle.1 

But  how  was  it  possible  that  baptism  thus  given  could 
be  of  any  avail,  for  the  Holy  Spirit  dwelt  only  in  the  Church: 
therefore  baptism  given  outside  the  Church  could  not  give 
the  Holy  Spirit.  That  only  in  the  Church  was  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  a  recognized  principle  in  Christian  theology,  and 
it  was  this  argument  that  had  so  largely  influenced  Cyprian. 
The  fundamental  point  of  Augustine’s  answer  is  that  it  was 
true  that  such  baptism  would  do  no  good,  but  yet  the  baptism 
was  rightly  conferred.  Anyone  who  was  baptized  outside 
the  Church  was  really  baptized,  but  it  was  only  when  he 
was  joined  in  Christian  unity  that  his  baptism  could  avail 
anything.  He  might  have  baptism  outside  the  Church, 
but  could  only  have  it  for  his  good  within  the  Church.2 
However  artificial  such  a  doctrine  might  be,  it  was  felt  to 
be  necessary  because  of  the  fundamental  belief  that  only  in 
the  unity  of  the  Church  could  the  Holy  Spirit  be  given. 

The  same  arguments  and  principles  were  applied  also  to 
ordination.  It  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  real  desire  for 
unity  of  the  Catholic  party  in  Africa  that  they  should  have 
definitely  proposed  from  the  beginning  of  schism  that  if  the 
Donatist  bishops  returned  to  Christian  unity  they  should 
retain  their  office,  and  the  two  bishops  should  become 
colleagues,  the  survivor  ultimately  to  succeed,  or  if  two 
bishops  was  looked  upon  by  the  laity  as  improper,  both  were 
to  retire.3  This  meant  not  merely  a  great  personal  con- 

1  Cont.  Parmenianum  ii.  29,  30. 

2  Ibid.  ii.  28.  Sicut  autem  habent  in  baptismo  quod  per  eos 
dari  possit,  sic  in  ordinatione  ius  dandi ;  utrumque  quidem  ad  perni- 
ciem  suam,  quamdiu  caritatem  non  habent  unitatis.  Sed  tamen 
aliud  est  non  habere,  aliud  perniciose  habere,  aliud  salubriter  habere. 
Quidquid  non  habetur,  dandum  est  cum  opus  est  dari;  quod  uero 
perniciose  habetur,  per  correctionem  depulsa  pernicie  agendum  est 
ut  salubriter  habeatur. 

3  Epist.  cxxviii.,  §§  2,  3.  Sic  eius  nobiscum  teneunt  unitatem,  ut 
non  solum  viam  salutis  inveniant,  sed  nec  honorem  Episcopatus 


158  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

cession,  but  a  definite  theological  change — Cyprian,  for 
example,  refused  to  recognize  any  heretical  or  schismatical 
orders,  and  even  after  the  baptism  of  heretics  had  been  recog¬ 
nized  there  were  many  who  hesitated  to  consider  their  orders 
valid.  The  reason  was  that  ordination  was  looked  upon  as  in 
an  especial  way  the  work  of  the  Church,  that  in  it  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  given,  and  it  was  believed  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
worked  only  in  the  Church. 

St.  Augustine’s  argument  against  them  is  that  baptism 
and  orders  are  really  on  the  same  footing.  Just  as  a  bap¬ 
tized  person  does  not  lose  his  baptism  by  becoming  a  heretic, 
as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  is  not  rebaptized  if  he  returns, 
so  an  ordained  person  does  not  lose  his  power  of  conferring 
either  baptism  or  orders.  The  reason  is  that  both  alike,  as 
has  been  shewn,  are  conferred,  not  by  the  minister  but  by 
Christ  Himself,  that  they  are  the  sacraments  not  of  the 
bishop  but  of  the  Church,  and  that  the  Divine  Spirit  works 
in  the  recipient  and  not  any  human  power.  The  sacraments 
are  there  although  they  confer  no  real  benefit  without  unity.1 
So  the  Donatists  have  all  the  sacraments.  “We  acknowledge 


amittant.  Neque  enim  in  eis  divinae  sacramenta  veritatis,  sed 
commenta  humani  detestamur  erroris:  quibus  sublatis  fraternum 
pectus  amplectimur,  Christiana  nobis  caritate  coniunctum,  quod 
nunc  dolemus  dissensione  diabolica  separatum.  Poterit  quippe 
unusquisque  nostrum,  honoris  sibi  socio  copulato,  uicissim  sedere 
eminentius,  sicut  peregrino  episcopo  iuxta  considente  collega.  Hoc 
cum  alternis  Basilicis  utrinque  conceditur,  uterque  ab  alterutro 
honore  mutuo  praevenitur :  quia  ubi  praeceptio  caritatis  dilataverit 
corda,  possessio  pads  non  fit  augusta;  ut  uno  eorum  defuncto, 
deinceps  iam  singulis  singuli  pristino  more  succedunt.  Nec  novum 
aliquid  fiet:  nam  hoc  ab  ipsius  separations  exordio,  in  eis  qui 
damnato  nefariae  discissionis  errore  unitatis  dulcedinem  vel  sero 
sapuerunt,  catholica  dilectio  custodivit.  Aut  si  forte  Chris tiani 
populi  singulis  delectantur  episcopis  et  duorum  consertium,  inu- 
sitata  rerum  facie  tolerare  non  possunt,  utrique  de  medio  seceda- 
mus,  et  ecclesiis  in  singulis  damnata  schismatis  causa  in  unitate 
pacifica  constitutis,  ab  his  qui  singuli  in  ecclesiis  singulis  invenien- 
tur,  unitate  facta  per  loca  necessaria  singuli  constitinantur  episcopi. 
On  St.  Augustine’s  teaching  on  reordination  see  especially  Mr. 
Turner’s  essay  in  The  Early  History  of  the  Church  and  the  Ministry, 
PP-  179  ff- 

1  Cont.  Ep.  Parm.  ii.  28.  Nulla  ostenditur  causa,  cur  ille,  qui 
ipsum  baptismum  amittere  non  potest,  ius  dandi  possit  amittere. 
Utrumque  enim  saci amentum  est  et  quadam  consecratione  utrumque 
homini  datur,  illud  cum  baptizatur,  illud  cum  ordinatur,  ideoque  in 
catholica  utrumque  non  licet  iterari.  Cf.  De  Bapt.  i.  2. 


THE  MINISTRY 


159 


in  them,”  he  says,  “the  good  things  which  are  divine,  their 
holy  baptism,  the  blessing  conferred  by  ordination,  their 
profession  of  self-denial,  their  vow  of  celibacy,  their  faith 
in  the  Trinity,  and  such  like ;  all  which  things  were  indeed 
theirs  before,  but  profited  them  nothing,  because  they  had 
not  charity.”1 

If  we  review  the  attitude  of  St.  Augustine  through  the 
whole  controversy,  two  things  are  apparent.  The  one  is  his 
belief  in  the  paramount  importance  of  unity,  the  other  is 
his  readiness  to  make  every  possible  concession  in  order  to 
attain  it.  If  we  consider  the  traditions  of  the  African 
Church  and  the  authority  in  particular  of  the  writings  of 
St.  Cyprian,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  realize  a  more  striking 
instance  of  the  revision  of  preconceived  ideas  and  prejudices 
for  the  well-being  of  the  Christian  Church  than  Augustine 
exhibits. 


IV 

The  polemic  which  St.  Augustine  carried  on  against  the 
Donatists  had  ultimately  a  profound  influence  on  Western 
teaching  concerning  the  Christian  ministry.  Here,  as  in 
other  directions,  we  shall  find  that  his  influence  has  been 
twofold  in  character,  that  he  is  the  father  alike  of  the 
Medieval  and  of  the  Protestant  conception  of  the  ministry. 

If  anyone  reads  St.  Augustine’s  writings  after  those  of 
St.  Cyprian  he  will  be  profoundly  struck  by  the  very  slight 
place  occupied  by  the  episcopal  office  in  his  thought. 
St.  Cyprian  has  the  word  “  bishop  ”  always  on  his  lips,  St. 
Augustine  rarely.  This  arose  partly  from  the  nature  of 
the  controversy  in  which  he  was  involved,  but  still  more 
from  his  own  character  and  disposition.  He  was  not  a 
statesman,  he  thought  little  of  hierarchical  distinctions,  he 
thought  much  more  of  personal  religion.  He  recognizes 
the  priesthood  of  the  laity.2  There  is  no  mediatorial 
power,  he  tells  us,  in  the  episcopal  office.3  He  thinks  not 
of  his  own  position,  but  of  the  service  he  can  render. 
Bishops  are  placed  in  the  Church  for  the  good  of  the 

1  Ep,  lxi.  2.  2  De  Civitate  Dei  xx.  10. 

3  Cont.  Ep .  Parm .  ii.  15,  16. 


160  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 


community.1  Why,  he  asks,  may  a  person  give  up  his 
orders,  but  not  his  position  as  a  Christian,  or  refuse  to  be 
made  a  bishop  ?  Because,  he  answers,  priesthood  and 
episcopacy  are  not  necessary  for  salvation.  The  Christian 
religion  is.2 

It  is  probably  startling  to  many  people  who  associate  the 
name  of  St.  Augustine  with  a  very  different  theory  of  the 
Church  to  realize  this  point  of  view.  What,  then,  did  St. 
Augustine  think  of  the  Christian  ministry  ? 

Let  us  first  turn  to  the  doctrine  of  the  succession.  He  does 
not  often  refer  to  it,  but  in  one  of  his  letters  he  argues 
against  the  Donat ists  on  the  basis  of  it.  A  careful  study  of 
his  argument  will  shew  how  different  was  his  conception 
from  that  now  taught.  Let  us  remember  that  his  contention 
was  that,  contrary  to  an  opinion  which  had  largely  pre¬ 
vailed  in  the  Church,  the  orders  conferred  by  heretics  were 
valid.  Now  a  modern  theologian  in  his  position  would 
have  had  no  difficulty  about  it.  He  would  have  pointed  out 
that  their  orders  were  conferred  by  bishops  themselves 
properly  consecrated  in  accordance  with  the  rites  of  the 
Church  and  that,  therefore,  the  Donatists  possessed  the 
Apostolic  Succession. 

But  St.  Augustine’s  argument  is  that  the  Donatists  have 
not  the  Apostolic  Succession.  He  turns  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  enumerates  the  succession  of  bishops  from 
St.  Peter  and  then  refers  in  contrast  to  the  ridiculous  little 
Donat ist  Church  which  had  been  established  there  so  short  a 
time.  Succession,  in  fact,  with  him,  meant,  as  always  in  the 
ancient  Church,  the  succession  of  bishops  in  a  see,  and  not 
succession  by  ordination.  Of  that  he  knows  nothing.  If 
we  were  to  use  his  arguments  at  the  present  day  we  should 
appeal  to  the  long  succession  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canter- 

1  Epist.  cxxviii.  3.  Episcopi  autem  propter  Christianos  populos 
ordinamur.  Quod  ergo  Christianis  populis  ad  Christianam  pacem 
prodest,  hoc  de  nostro  episcopatu  faciamus.  .  .  .  Episcopalis 
dignitas  fructuosior  nobis  erit,  si  gregem  Christi  magis  deposita 
collegerit,  quam  retenta  disperserit. 

2  Contra  Cresconium  ii.  13.  Sicut  in  accipiendis  his  rebus  pos- 
sunt  esse  iustae  causae,  cur  excuset  quisque  fieri  episcopus,  nec 
tamen  similiter  potest  ulla  causa  esse  iusta,  cur  quisquis  excuset 
fieri  christianus,  quid  ita,  nisi  quia  sine  episcopatu  uel  clericatu 
salui  esse  possumus,  sine  Christiana  uero  religione  non  possumus  ? 


THE  THEORY  OF  THE  MINISTRY 


161 


bury  and  should  contrast  the  recent  character  of  the  succes¬ 
sion  of  the  Archbishops  of  Westminster.  It  is  not  here,  then, 
that  we  can  find  an  explanation  of  St.  Augustine’s  theory  of 
the  ministry.1 

The  difficulty  of  answering  the  question  as  to  what  was 
St.  Augustine’s  theory  of  orders  arises  from  the  fact  that 
it  was  one  which  in  his  time  was  never  asked.  The  question 
was  not  in  dispute  or  in  any  way  a  matter  of  controversy. 
On  all  such  points  the  Donatists  agreed  exactly  with  the 
Catholic  Church.  They  had  the  same  hierarchy.  They 
appointed  and  ordained  their  clergy  in  the  same  way. 
Both  alike  acted  according  to  the  traditions  of  the  Church, 
and  the  question  on  what  depended  the  validity  of  orders 
or  sacraments  was  not  discussed. 

Indirectly,  however,  we  learn  a  good  deal,  and  we  find 
St.  Augustine  really  introduced  a  change  which  had  a  quite 
unexpected  result.  The  traditional  theory  was  that  the 
sacraments  were  the  sacraments  of  the  Church.  This  St. 
Augustine  also  held.  The  bishops  and  other  clergy  were 
the  ministers  of  the  Church,  the  sacraments  were  rightly 
administered  because  they  were  administered  as  the  Church 
had  ordained,  and  the  ministers  were  rightly  appointed 
because  they  were  appointed  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
Church.  And  the  first  tendency  of  St.  Augustine’s  teach¬ 
ing  was  to  emphasize  this  point  of  view.  By  emphasizing 
the  unimportance  of  the  ministerial  act,  by  asseverating 
again  and  again  that  baptism  is  not  the  baptism  of  the 
bishop,  whether  orthodox  or  heretical,  and  that  the  true 
minister  is  Christ,  he  tended  to  depreciate  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  the  clergy.  There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt  that 
his  own  feelings  and  beliefs  were  what  we  should  now 
describe  as  decidedly  anti-sacerdotal. 

But  incidentally  he  introduced  a  profound  change.  He 
had  to  explain  how  it  came  to  be  that  when  a  bishop  had 
ceased  to  be  a  member  of  the  Church  he  could  still  act  as  a 
bishop,  and  his  answer,  as  we  have  seen,  was  this.  If  a 
person  was  baptized  in  the  Church  and  became  a  heretic, 
and  then  came  back  to  the  Church,  he  was  not  rebaptized. 

1  Ep.  liii.  2.  On  St.  Augustine’s  teaching  on  the  Apostolical 
Succession,  see  Turner,  op.  cit.,  p.  192  j ff. 


11 


i6s  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 


Baptism  once  conferred  could  never  be  lost.  So  the  power 
of  baptizing  or  of  giving  any  of  the  sacraments  could  not 
be  lost.  The  bishop  could  still  do  all  that  he  could  do 
before,  although  he  could  in  schism  only  do  it  to  his  own 
destruction.  Outside  the  Church,  therefore,  the  bishop  could 
administer  sacraments  validly.  This  somewhat  artificial 
conception — which  would  easily  make  the  sacraments  seem 
simply  magical — was  developed  by  St.  Augustine  to  meet 
the  particular  difficulty  which  confronted  him,  but  it  had 
a  profound  influence  on  the  later  theology  of  the  Christian 
Church.  He  first  defined  what  later  theologians  call  the 
character  indelebilis.  Once  a  priest,  always  a  priest.  Once 
a  bishop,  always  a  bishop.  St.  Augustine’s  solution  of  the 
difficulty  was  largely  influenced  by  the  fact  that  he  did 
not  think  much  of  either  bishops  or  priests.  Its  influence 
in  later  times  was  very  great,  because  it  became  the  basis  of 
the  whole  theory  of  the  clergy  as  a  sacerdotal  class.  In  the 
days  of  Cyprian  the  Church  considered  the  deposition  of 
a  bishop  or  priest  a  real  deposition.  The  sacraments  of  a 
deposed  bishop  were  looked  upon  as  invalid.  St.  Augustine, 
anxious  to  find  a  solid  argument  for  recognizing  the  baptism 
and  the  orders  of  heretics,  was  the  first  theologian  to  ascribe 
this  character  to  holy  orders. 

So  once  more  we  find  that  St.  Augustine  is  the  source 
of  two  opposing  streams  of  thought.  The  Evangelical 
Christian,  reading  his  works,  will  find  a  view  of  the  ministry 
very  similar  to  that  which  he  himself  holds.  He  certainly 
finds  no  exaggeration  of  its  importance.  The  ministry 
depends  on  the  Church,  not  the  Church  on  the  ministry. 
St.  Augustine  is  an  Evangelical,  almost  a  Protestant, 
theologian.  The  change  of  tone  compared  with  Cyprian 
is  most  striking.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  theory  he 
established  altered  the  whole  basis  of  the  theology  of 
orders.  Orders  in  the  ancient  Church  depended  upon  the 
Church.  Orders  in  the  medieval  Church  depended  upon 
the  bishop.  In  the  early  Church  episcopal  ordination  was 
necessary  because  the  bishop  was  the  person  appointed  by 
the  Church  to  perform  its  functions.  In  the  medieval  and 
modern  Church  the  idea  has  grown  up  that  the  Church 
depends  upon  the  due  ordination  of  bishops.  St.  Augus- 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  CIVIL  POWER  163 

tine’s  theory  of  the  Apostolic  Succession  was  that  which 
had  always  prevailed  up  to  his  time,  but  the  theory  of 
ministerial  action  which  he  introduced,  not  to  exalt  the 
ministry,  but  because  he  did  not  rate  its  importance 
highly,  became  the  basis  of  the  more  sacerdotal  theory  of 
the  ministry  and  the  foundation  of  the  later  theory  of 
Apostolic  Succession. 


V 

Closely  connected  with  the  Donatist  controversy  come 
St.  Augustine’s  views  with  regard  to  persecution  and  the 
relation  of  the  Church  to  the  civil  power.  It  was  one  of 
the  greatest  misfortunes  of  the  controversy  that  it  had 
developed  an  atmosphere  of  persecution.  It  was  not 
unnatural,  indeed,  that  Constantine  should  think  that 
he  might  benefit  Christianity  by  supporting  it  with  the 
power  of  the  civil  magistrate,  and  that  he  and  many  others 
who  had  only  imperfectly  learned  what  Christianity  meant 
should  have  thought  that  this  would  be  an  efficacious  way 
of  curing  division.  At  any  rate,  we  find  a  fierce  persecu¬ 
tion  of  the  Donatists  initiated,  and  that  the  result  was  the 
exact  opposite  to  what  had  been  hoped.  It  served  to 
embitter  instead  of  to  allay  the  schism.  The  Donatists 
claimed  that  to  suffer  persecution  was  the  mark  of  the  true 
Church,  and  refused  to  be  reconciled,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  both  the  wide  prevalence  and  the  bitterness  of 
the  sect  were  due  to  the  extent  to  which  it  had  had  to  suffer. 

But  the  appeal  to  the  state  and  the  recourse  to  the  civil 
power  was  not  entirely  one-sided.  St.  Augustine  presses 
home  to  them  their  inconsistency.  They  objected  to  the 
intervention  of  the  state,  but  it  was  they  who  had  first 
appealed  to  it.  They  had  refused  to  accept  the  decision 
of  councils  at  Rome  and  Arles,  and  had  demanded  to  be 
tried  by  the  civil  power.  When  they  had  the  opportunity, 
as  under  Julian,  they  had  been  quite  ready  to  make  use  of 
the  support  of  the  civil  power  against  the  Catholics,  and  they 
had  used  it  also  against  those  who  had  separated  from  them¬ 
selves  and  made  a  schism  of  a  schism.  An  atmosphere  of 
persecution  was  created. 


164  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

Moreover,  the  whole  question  had  been  complicated  and 
embittered  by  the  appearance  of  the  Circumcelliones.  It 
was  quite  clear  that  order  must  be  preserved.  It  was  quite 
clear  that  those  who  were  guilty  of  murder  and  plundering 
and  sacrilege  must  be  punished,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
difference  between  preserving  order  and  punishing  crime, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  using  the  power  of 
the  state  to  influence  opinion,  was  not  yet  realized.  The 
attacks  on  Catholics  made  an  appeal  to  the  civil  power  just 
and  necessary;  and  it  was  natural  to  extend  the  interference 
so  as  to  restrain  the  opinions  which  were  not  unnaturally 
looked  on  as  the  cause  of  disorder. 

In  relation  to  persecution,  as  in  so  many  other  directions, 
the  influence  of  St.  Augustine  has  probably  been  different 
from  what  he  intended,  and  he  has  been  held  responsible 
for  encouraging  what  he  had  done  a  great  deal  to  mitigate. 
Originally,  as  might  be  expected  from  his  character,  he  was 
opposed  to  persecution.  “My  opinion  was,”  he  writes, 
“  that  no  one  should  be  coerced  into  the  unity  of  Christ, 
that  we  must  act  only  by  words,  fight  only  by  arguments, 
and  prevail  by  force  of  reason,  lest  we  should  have  those 
whom  we  knew  as  avowed  heretics  feigning  themselves  to 
be  Catholics.”1  He  goes  on  to  explain  that  this  opinion  of 
his  had  been  changed  not  by  argument,  but  by  experience. 
He  had  found  that  the  mild  methods  of  coercion  which 
prevailed  in  Hippo  had  been  singularly  effective,  and  there¬ 
fore  he  urges  the  duty  of  using  the  state  to  assist  the 
spread  of  right  opinion.  But  he  is  always  particular  in 
insisting  that  in  no  case  must  the  penalty  of  death  be  in¬ 
flicted,  and  that  what  he  wishes  is  not  persecution  but  mild 
coercion. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  St.  Augustine  really  read  his 
experience  right.  It  is  probable  that  what  influenced  the 
people  of  Hippo  was  the  fact  that  instead  of  an  unjust  and 
severe  persecution  they  found  that  any  such  severity  was 
mitigated,  and  that  they  were  exposed  only  to  repressive 
measures  of  a  mild  character.  He  ascribed  to  this  coercion 
what  was  really  due  to  his  own  personal  influence  extending 
over  many  years.  His  eloquence  and  dialectical  skill,  his 

1  Ep.  xciii.  17  (E.T.). 


MITIGATION  OF  PERSECUTION 


165 

powerful  and  persistent  arguments,  his  exhibition  of  the 
power  of  Christianity  in  his  own  person,  his  insistence  on 
Christian  union  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  charity, 
must  have  had  a  powerful  effect,  and  we  do  not  feel  con¬ 
vinced  by  his  experience  of  the  benefit  of  methods  of 
coercion. 

Normally,  he  used  his  influence  on  the  side  of  mitigation. 
An  admirable  example  is  given  in  a  letter  to  Marcellinus, 
the  Emperor’s  representative  in  Africa,  pleading  for  modera¬ 
tion.  The  case  was  certainly  a  sufficiently  striking  one. 
Some  Donatists  had  been  accused,  and  we  may  presume 
justly,  of  murdering  one  presbyter,  of  beating  another 
presbyter,  digging  out  his  eye  and  cutting  off  his  finger. 
We  should  hardly  think  the  intervention  of  the  civil  power 
in  such  a  case  illegitimate,  nor  the  penalty  of  death  im¬ 
proper.  But  St.  Augustine  writes  to  plead  for  them.  He 
fears  the  death  penalty  may  be  inflicted.  In  the  case  of 
the  execution  of  ordinary  criminals  he  would  be  ready  to 
pass  it  over  in  silence,  but  anything  like  such  a  retaliation 
for  the  sufferings  of  the  servants  of  God  could  not  be 
endured.  “  Let  your  indignation  against  their  crimes,” 
he  writes,  “  be  tempered  by  considerations  of  humanity. 
Be  not  provoked  by  their  sinful  deeds  to  gratify  the  passion 
of  revenge.  Treat  them  as  an  affectionate  father.  Let 
not  the  sufferings  of  Catholic  servants  of  God,  which  ought 
to  be  useful  in  the  spiritual  upbuilding  of  the  weak,  be  sullied 
by  the  retaliation  of  injuries.”1 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  writings  of  St.  Augustine  have 
had  an  influence  different  from  what  he  desired.  The  main 
principle  of  his  life  was  to  mitigate  persecution,  but  he  had 
allowed  himself  to  use,  in  an  unfortunate  way,  the  words 
“  Compel  them  to  come  in,”  and  in  a  harsher  and  ruder  age 
his  writings  would  be  quoted  as  a  justification  of  Christian 
persecution.  It  has  taken  the  Christian  Church  a  long  time 
to  learn  its  lesson:  some,  perhaps,  have  not  yet  learnt  it. 
But  we  may  hope  that  it  has  begun  to  be  realized  that  force 
and  violence  in  any  form  are  neither  legitimate  nor  effective 
means  either  for  the  spread  of  orthodoxy  or  the  propaga¬ 
tion  of  Christianity. 

1  Ep.  cxxxiij. 


166  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 


VI 

Our  researches  have  suggested  to  us  that  while  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  estimates  so  highly  the  authority  of  the  Church  and 
sacraments,  his  teaching  differed  widely,  both  from  many 
modern  theories,  and  from  the  doctrine  often  called  Augus- 
tinian.  Further  light  may  be  gained  by  considering  other 
aspects  of  his  teaching.  We  have  noticed  how  strongly  he 
believed  in  and  was  moved  by  the  authority  of  the  Church, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  he  did  not  ascribe  to  it  any  in¬ 
fallibility.  This  point  demands  some  further  investigation. 

The  Donatists  were  accustomed  to  appeal,  as  was  indeed 
natural,  to  the  letters  of  Cyprian  and  the  council  which  had 
been  held  under  his  presidency  on  the  question  of  baptism. 
To  this  Augustine  answers  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  stand  in  a  place  by  themselves,  and  that 
no  letters  of  any  bishop  can  have  authority  as  against  them ; 
that  such  letters  may  be  corrected  by  the  greater  authority, 
learning,  and  wisdom  of  other  bishops  or  by  councils;  that 
provincial  councils  must  yield  to  the  authority  of  universal 
councils ;  and  that  even  universal  councils  can  be  corrected, 
the  earlier  by  the  later.  New  things  may  be  brought  to 
light,  and  truth  may  progress  without  strife  or  bitterness 
in  holy  humility,  Catholic  peace,  and  Christian  charity.1 

These  general  principles  may  be  supplemented  by  the 
particular  question  of  the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Just  as  St.  Augustine  upheld  the  authority  of  the  Universal 
Church,  without  ascribing  to  it  any  infallibility,  so  he 
combined  the  greatest  respect  for  the  Apostolic  see  of  the 
West  with  a  refusal  to  recognize  its  right  to  dictate  to  other 
churches.  Even  Peter,  its  founder,  was  not  infallible.  It 
is  true,  indeed,  that  the  primacy  of  the  apostolate  is  superior 
to  any  bishopric  in  the  world;  but  Peter  had  failed  to  hold 
to  the  rule  of  truth  as  the  Church  afterwards  laid  it  down. 
Subsequent  history  has  shewn  how  completely  wrong  was 
his  Judaizing  policy.  He  was  rebuked  by  Paul,  and  the 
great  value  of  his  example  is  that  in  spite  of  this  difference 
of  opinion  on  a  matter  by  no  means  unimportant,  he  pre¬ 
served  Christian  unity.2  The  same  principle  applies  to  the 

1  De  Bapt.  ii.  4,  14.  2  Ibid .  ii.  2. 


APPEALS  TO  ROME 


167 

Church  of  Rome.  An  unknown  writer  had  maintained  that 
its  rule  with  regard  to  fasting  on  the  seventh  day  ought  to 
be  followed  universally.  He  had  appealed  to  the  authority 
of  Peter,  the  Janitor  of  Heaven,  the  chief  of  the  Apostles, 
the  Foundation  of  the  Church.  From  him  these  commands 
had  come.  The  reply  of  St.  Augustine  was,  that  if  other 
apostles  were  willing  to  live  in  peace  and  unity  with  Peter, 
though  he  introduced  customs  different  from  their  own,  the 
Church  which  he  founded  must  manage  to  live  in  peace  and 
unity  with  others,  although  they  did  not  accept  its  decrees 
on  every  point.1 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  detail  on  the  question 
of  appeals  to  Rome.  The  Church  of  Africa,  after  careful 
investigation  and  inquiry,  definitely  refused  to  allow  appeals 
to  Rome,  or  to  receive  an  emissary  from  Rome  to  decide 
cases.  No  synod  enjoined  or  allowed  this.  The  Nicene 
Council  has  ordered  that  all  causes  should  be  decided  where 
they  arise.  No  one  can  believe  that  our  God  will  inspire 
a  single  individual  with  justice,  and  deny  it  to  a  large 
number  of  bishops  sitting  in  council.  St.  Augustine  was 
present  at  the  council  at  which  this  letter  was  written, 
and  although  it  may  be  true  that  he  did  not  take  great 
interest  in  ecclesiastical  questions,  it  harmonizes  with  his 
expressed  opinions.2  St.  Augustine  was  no  more  willing 
than  Cyprian  to  accept  in  any  way  the  supremacy  of  the 
Roman  Church.  Both  alike  recognized  its  primacy.  Both 
alike  were  full  of  admiration  and  respect  for  it  as  the  great 
Apostolic  see  of  the  West,  but  neither  was  prepared  to 
recognize  that  it  had  any  authority  to  override  other 
churches. 

1  Ep.  xxxvi.  21.  Petrus  etiam,  inquit,  Apostolorum  caput,  caeli 
ianitor,  et  Ecclesiae  fundamentum,  extincto  Simone,  qui  diaboli 
fuerat  nonnisi  ieiunio  vincendi  figura,  idipsum  Romanos  edocuit, 
quorum  fides  annuntiatur  universo  orbi  terrarum .  Numquid  ergo 
ceteri  Apostoli  prandere  Christianos  contra  Petrum  docuerunt  in 
universo  orbe  terrarum  ?  Sicut  itaque  inter  se  vixerunt  concorditer 
Petrus  et  condiscipuli  eius,  sic  inter  se  concorditer  vivant  sabbato 
ieiunantes  quos  plantavit  Petrus,  et  sabbato  prandentes  quos  plan- 
taverunt  condiscipuli  eius. 

2  On  the  question  of  appeal  from  the  Church  of  Africa  to 
Rome  and  the  Sardican  canon,  see  Robertson  in  Murray's  Dic¬ 
tionary  of  Christian  Biography,  pp.  84,  85,  and  the  authorities 
there  quoted. 


1 68  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 


Not  only  does  St.  Augustine  neither  accept  nor  desire 
any  infallible  authority,  he  is  always  anxious  that  the 
authority  of  the  Church  should  not  in  any  way  be  a  burden. 
In  his  well-known  letter  to  Januarius  he  bids  him  “  hold 
fast  this  as  the  fundamental  principle  in  the  present 
discussion,  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  appointed  to  us 
a  ‘  light  yoke  ’  and  an  ‘  easy  burden,’  as  He  declares  in  the 
Gospel.”  “  He  has  bound  together  His  people  under  the 
new  dispensation  in  fellowship  by  sacraments  which  are  in 
number  very  few,  in  observance  most  easy,  and  in  signifi¬ 
cance  most  excellent,  as  baptism  solemnized  in  the  name  of 
the  Trinity,  the  communion  of  His  body  and  blood,  and  such 
other  things  as  are  prescribed  in  the  canonical  scriptures.” 
“  Those  things  which  are  held  on  the  authority,  not  of 
Scripture  but  of  tradition,  and  are  observed  throughout  the 
whole  world,  may  be  understood  to  have  been  instituted 
by  the  Apostles  themselves  or  by  a  council.”  Here  the 
authority  of  the  Church  is  most  useful.  This  especially 
concerns  the  great  Christian  festivals.  Other  things,  which 
are  different  in  different  places  and  countries,  may  be  left 
to  the  authority  of  the  particular  church.  There  is  no 
better  rule  for  the  wise  and  serious  Christian  in  this  matter 
than  to  conform  to  the  practice  which  he  finds  prevailing 
in  the  church  to  which  it  may  be  his  lot  to  go.  This  he 
ought  to  do  for  the  sake  of  fellowship  with  them  with  whom 
we  live. 

But  St.  Augustine  is  inclined  to  go  somewhat  farther  than 
this.  He  doubts  the  value  of  the  excessive  number  of 
customs  which  had  a  tendency  to  grow  up.  “  I  cannot, 
however,  sanction,”  he  writes,  "  with  my  approbation  those 
ceremonies  which  are  departures  from  the  custom  of  the 
Church,  and  are  instituted  on  the  pretext  of  being  symbolical 
of  some  holy  mystery :  although,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding 
offence  to  the  piety  of  some  and  the  pugnacity  of  others, 
I  do  not  venture  to  condemn  severely  many  things  of  this 
kind.  .  .  .  My  opinion  therefore  is  that,  wherever  it  is 
possible,  all  those  things  should  be  abolished  without 
hesitation  which  neither  have  warrant  in  Holy  Scripture  nor 
are  found  to  have  been  appointed  by  councils  of  bishops, 
nor  are  confirmed  by  the  practice  of  the  universal  Church, 


INFALLIBILITY 


169 

but  are  so  infinitely  various,  according  to  the  different 
customs  of  different  places,  that  it  is  with  difficulty,  if  at  all, 
that  the  reason  which  guided  men  in  appointing  them  can 
be  discovered/’  Even  if  nothing  in  them  be  contrary  to 
true  faith,  they  are  not  desirable.  The  essence  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  that  it  should  be  free,  that  its  sacraments 
are  few,  and  that  it  knows  nothing  of  the  burdensome 
ceremonies  of  Judaism.  We  seem  to  be  reading  here  the 
sober  language  of  Anglican  moderation.1 

St.  Augustine’s  treatment  of  these  questions  serves 
admirably  to  illustrate  his  religious  standpoint.  He  is 
by  nature  and  conviction  an  Evangelical  Christian.  He 
does  not  care  for  ecclesiastical  position,  but  he  is  jealous  of 
religious  freedom.  His  thoughts  are  always  of  God  and  His 
grace.  Anything  which  will  lead  a  man  to  Him — or,  perhaps, 
as  he  would  look  on  it,  by  which  God  brings  a  man  to  Himself 
— he  cherishes;  but,  as  much  as  any  modern  Evangelical,  he 
fears  the  ordinances  or  the  organization  which  may  tend  to 
obscure  and  hinder  personal  religion.  Rigidity  of  liturgical 
rule,  or  of  discipline,  or  of  ecclesiastical  custom,  he  entirely 
disliked.  It  may  be  asked  how  he  reconciled  his  conception 
of  the  authority  of  the  Church  with  his  refusal  to  recognize 
any  plenary  authority.  The  answer  must  be,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  purity  of  the  Church,  that  his  attitude  was  conditioned 
by  his  philosophy.  The  Church,  indeed,  the  true  Church, 
is  infallible,  but  that  is  the  Church  whose  pattern  is  stored 
up  in  the  heavens.  The  Church  on  earth  is  an  imperfect 
copy  of  the  heavenly  original,  and  its  work  is  continuously 
to  strive  to  attain  truth. 

There  have  always  been  those  in  every  age  who  have  de¬ 
manded  an  absolute,  infallible  authority.  Either,  they  say, 
the  teaching  is  true  or  it  is  not  true.  They  cannot  recognize 
any  grades  of  truth  or  refuse  to  allow  that  truth  can  in  any 
way  be  relative  to  our  own  mental  development .  Some  have 
tried  to  find  this  infallible  authority  in  Scripture,  but  they 
are  at  once  confronted  with  the  difficulty  of  the  want  of 
an  authoritative  interpreter  and  the  discrepancies  between 
different  passages.  Others  have  tried  to  find  it  in  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  but  no  one  has  yet  been  able  to 

1  Ep .  liv.,  lv. 


170  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

find  an  authoritative  statement  of  where  the  authority  of 
the  Church  really  lies.  Others  have  tried  to  find  it  in  the 
infallibility  of  popes,  but  they  are  immediately  confronted 
with  the  fact  that  many  utterances  of  popes  have  been 
erroneous,  and  that  there  is  no  exact  means  of  distinguishing 
which  papal  utterances  are  infallible  and  which  are  not. 
The  demand  for  infallibility  is  one  which,  in  human  life,  it  is 
impossible  to  gratify.  All  truth  here  must  have  an  element 
of  relativity  and  imperfection.  We  must  be  content  to 
recognize  that  we  have  in  the  spiritual  weight  and  authority 
of  the  whole  Christian  Church  a  quite  sufficient  guide,  if  we 
will  only  use  it,  to  arrive  at  such  a  measure  of  truth  as  we 
need  for  our  guidance  in  this  life. 


VII 

What,  then,  can  we  finally  deduce  from  the  teaching  of 
St.  Augustine  ? 

i.  First  of  all,  his  conception  of  the  Church.  We  have 
seen  how  he  was  the  source  on  the  one  side  of  the  medieval 
conception  of  the  temporal  authority  of  the  Roman  Church, 
on  the  other  of  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  the  visible  and 
invisible  Church.  Neither  of  these  represented  his  own 
teaching.  His  doctrine  of  the  Church,  indeed,  is  one  which, 
if  we  work  it  out,  we  shall  find  much  better  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  the  present  day  than  either  of  the  others. 

To  him,  there  is  no  Church  on  earth  but  the  one  visible 
society.  That  earthly  society  must  partake  necessarily 
of  the  imperfection  which  accompanies  everything  in  its 
material  embodiment.  The  true  ideal  Church  is  in  heaven, 
and  the  earthly  Church  is  always  striving  to  realize  that 
ideal.  So  he  definitely  tells  us  that  he  understood  the 
holiness  of  the  Church.  The  Church  here  on  earth  is  im¬ 
perfect.  It  consists  of  men  who  are  not  yet  really  holy. 
It  contains  elements  inconsistent  with  its  holiness.  But 
we,  like  the  apostles,  speak  of  the  Church  being  what  it  is 
always  striving  to  become.  That  is  why  we  call  it  the  holy 
Church. 

It  was  the  same  point  of  view  which  prevented  him  from 
feeling  any  difficulty  about  the  relation  of  the  actual  Church 


MINISTRY  AND  SACRAMENTS 


171 

to  Christian  truth.  No  doubt,  ideally,  the  Church  was 
infallible,  but  he  does  not  expect  infallibility  in  this  material 
embodiment  of  it.  He  feels  the  weight  of  its  authority,  and 
can  learn  from  it,  but  he  does  not  ask  for  rigid  and  infallible 
knowledge.  He  is  prepared  to  acquiesce  in  a  certain  in¬ 
definiteness.  The  Church  when  it  is  perfect  will  have  per¬ 
fect  knowledge. 

In  relation  to  Christian  unity,  St.  Augustine  never  attained 
full  insight.  He  leaves  many  irreconcilable  conclusions, 
and  has  never  seen  the  way  to  reconcile  them.  He  had  not, 
indeed,  realized  how  irreconcilable  they  might  appear  to  be. 
The  overpowering  influence  of  the  idea  that  the  one  Catholic 
Church  could  alone  be  called  the  true  Church,  that  nowhere 
else  was  there  salvation,  that  in  no  separated  body  was  there 
to  be  found  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  exigencies  of  his  controversy 
with  the  Donatists  prevented  him  from  seeing  clearly.  Yet 
we  have  seen  how  all  his  arguments,  his  doctrine  of  grace, 
his  insight  into  the  reality  of  things,  tended  to  break  down 
these  rigid  conceptions.  We  may  apply  his  principles  a  little 
farther  than  he  did  and  recognize  that  the  unity  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  is,  as  much  as  its  holiness  or  its  possession  of 
truth,  something  ideal.  There  is  the  one  Church  without 
division  in  the  heavenly  sphere:  the  Church  on  earth  is 
continuously  striving  to  attain  that  ideal  unity. 

2.  Secondly,  his  doctrine  of  the  ministry  and  sacraments. 
He  held,  absolutely,  that  the  sacraments  are  the  sacraments 
of  the  Church,  that  Christian  ministers  are  but  instruments 
of  the  Church  in  performing  the  sacraments.  There  is  not 
in  his  theology  anything  which  we  in  modern  days  would 
call  sacerdotalism.  On  the  other  hand,  the  medieval 
doctrine  of  the  ministry  and  sacraments  was  largely  built 
up  on  one  element  of  his  teaching,  and  that  element  was 
inconsistent  with  his  real  point  of  view.  Like  him,  we 
recognize  that  the  ultimate  validity  of  sacraments  depends 
upon  the  authority  and  voice  of  the  Church,  which  is  the 
home  of  the  Spirit ;  but  if  we  realize  that  the  Church  is  not 
confined  to  one  single  organization,  but  consists  of  the  whole 
body  of  the  faithful  baptized,  and  that  therefore  all  Christian 
societies  represent,  some  more,  some  less  imperfectly,  the 
true  Church,  and  that  none  of  them  are  without  the  gift  of 


172  THE  TEACHING  OF  ST.  AUGUSTINE 

God’s  Holy  Spirit,  then  there  will  be  no  such  society  so 
imperfect  as  to  be  without  sacramental  grace.  In  all  of  them 
baptism,  the  communion  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
ordination,  penance,  are  sacramental — that  is,  are  means  of 
imparting  to  their  members  a  portion  of  God’s  Holy  Spirit. 

3.  Then,  thirdly,  the  Church  of  Africa  and  St.  Augustine, 
in  their  controversy  with  the  Donatists,  give  us  a  remarkable 
example  of  the  way  in  which  a  church  may  learn  to  correct 
its  errors.  They  had  inherited  the  authoritative  teaching  of 
Cyprian,  and  guided  by  him  would  have  been  led  to  believe 
that  neither  the  baptism  nor  the  orders  of  schismatics 
should  be  accepted.  They  learned  that  they  were  mistaken. 
They  realized  that  for  the  sake  of  Christian  unity  they  must 
change  their  attitude.  We  find  them  prepared  to  recognize 
both  the  baptism  and  the  orders  of  those  who  had  separated 
from  them.  When  reunion  is  accomplished  the  Donatist 
bishops  and  clergy  take  their  places  in  the  reunited  Church 
without  any  form  of  reordination.  They  were  offered  the 
same  status  and  position  that  they  had  held  in  their  own 
community. 

We  are  confronted  with  a  similar  position.  The  great 
barrier  to  reunion  at  the  present  moment  is  an  incorrect 
conception  of  the  doctrine  of  Apostolical  Succession.  Not 
the  doctrine  itself,  for  the  open  and  visible  succession  of 
bishops  in  the  Christian  Church  is  still  as  it  was — a  visible 
sign  of  the  continuity  of  Christian  teaching;  but  a  modern 
conception  of  its  meaning.  The  modern  teaching  of  suc¬ 
cession  by  ordination  finds  no  support  in  the  teaching  of 
the  early  Church,  to  which  the  Church  of  England  rightly 
appeals  with  a  particular  emphasis.  That  barrier  once 
removed,  it  will  be  possible  without  sacrifice  of  principle,  if 
we  are  willing,  to  restore  Christian  unity.  Every  considera¬ 
tion  of  truth  and  charity  demands  that  we  should  recognize 
the  position,  and  be  as  honest  and  courageous  as  was  the 
Church  of  Africa  under  St.  Augustine. 

4.  Then,  lastly,  St.  Augustine,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  his  writings,  teaches  us  that  the  ultimate  basis  and 
aim  of  the  Church  is  Christian  charity,  and  that  the  ultimate 
appeal  must  be  to  that.  We  recognize  that  he  did  not  see 
quite  fully  what  the  content  of  that  idea  might  mean.  The 


CHRISTIAN  CHARITY 


173 

denotation  of  the  idea  of  charity  has  continually  widened. 
It  is  not  his  errors  that  we  must  copy,  or  his  mistakes  that 
we  must  repeat.  We  can  preserve  his  ardent  longing  for 
unity  without  thinking  that  there  is  no  salvation  outside 
a  narrow  conception  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  without 
thinking  that  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  confined  to 
those  who  have  episcopal  orders.  What  he  has  taught  us 
is  that  the  true  meaning  of  the  Christian  Church  lies  not  in 
its  authority  or  its  organization,  but  in  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  embodiment  of  the  idea  of  Christian  charity,  that  in  it 
we  are  brothers  one  of  another,  in  it  we  can  pray  together, 
in  it  be  united  in  the  grace  and  reality  of  the  sacraments. 
The  sons  of  the  new  Jerusalem,  he  tells  us,  are  travailed  with 
and  brought  forth  with  charity  as  their  mother,  it  is  charity 
that  has  established  them  within  her  walls.  O  beloved  sons, 
sons  of  the  kingdom,  sons  of  Jerusalem,  in  Jerusalem  is 
the  vision  of  peace.  All  that  love  peace  are  blessed  in  her. 
It  is  ye  who  enter  in  when  her  gates  are  closed  and  her 
bars  are  fastened.  Seek  and  love  peace  at  home  and  abroad, 
in  friend  and  foe.  Seek  peace  and  ensue  it.1 

1  Enarratio  in  Psalmum  cxlvii.  14,  15,  16.  Filii  sunt,  sancti 
sunt:  isti  filii  sancti  iam  laudantes  et  gaudentes,  parturiti  et  parti 
sunt  matre  caritate,  inclusi  sunt  colligente  caritate.  .  .  .  Ecce  hoc 
dico,  o  filii  dilecti,  o  filii  regni,  o  ciues  Jerusalem,  quoniam  in  Jeru¬ 
salem  uisio  pacis  est:  et  omnes  qui  amant  pacem,  benedicuntur  in 
ea,  et  ipsi  intrant  cum  clauduntur  portae  et  firmantur  uectes.  Hanc 
quam  nominatam  sic  amatis  et  diligitis,  ipsam  sectamini,  ipsam 
desiderate:  ipsam  in  domo,  ipsum  in  negotio,  ipsam  in  uxoribus, 
ipsam  in  filiis,  ipsam  in  semis,  ipsam  in  amicis,  ipsam  in  inimicis 
diligite.  .  .  .  Quaere  pacem  ait  et  sequere  earn. 


LECTURE  V 

THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

“  I  hear  that  there  be  divisions  among  you." — i  Cor.  xi.  18. 

Christian  divisions. 

The  Nestorian  and  Monophysite  heresies.  The  doctrinal  question. 
Political  and  social  influences.  Results  of  the  schism. 

The  schism  of  East  and  West.  Differences  of  temperament  and 
theology.  The  political  division.  The  Double  Procession  and  the 
filioque  clause.  The  claims  of  the  Papacy.  Results. 

The  Medieval  Church.  The  development  of  the  Papacy.  Its 
final  definition.  Cause  of  the  development.  Results.  Claim  to 
preserve  unity  and  efficiency.  Its  methods. 

The  Reformation.  The  aims  of  Erasmus.  His  failure.  Erasmus 
and  Luther.  The  Anglican  reform.  Influence  of  Greek  thought. 
Results  of  the  Reformation.  The  doctrine  of  an  Invisible  Church. 
Calvin  and  Presbyterianism.  Independency.  The  growth  of 
sectaiianism.  Dogmatic  narrowness.  The  formularies  of  the 
Reformation.  The  development  of  Romanism.  The  Council  of 
Trent.  Theological  seminaries.  The  Vatican  Council  and  the 
doctrine  of  Infallibility. 

Conclusion.  The  evils  of  over -definition.  Unspiritual  methods. 
Inadequate  theories  about  the  Church. 

So  far  we  have  been  engaged  in  studying  the  undivided 
Church.  For  many  centuries  after  the  beginning  of  Christi¬ 
anity  the  Church  presented  to  the  world  the  aspect  of  real 
unity.  There  were,  indeed,  separated  bodies,  but  they  were 
local  and,  compared  with  the  great  Church,  insignificant. 
From  time  to  time  Christendom  was  rent  by  controversies, 
but  a  solution  was  found,  and  no  permanent  schism  was 
created.  But  ultimately  this  external  unity  was  broken. 
As  the  Church  extended  and  embraced  nations  not  funda¬ 
mentally  influenced  by  the  Greco-Roman  civilization,  as  the 
difference  of  temperament  between  East  and  West  became 
more  apparent,  as  civilization  declined,  and  the  intercourse 
of  nations  became  more  difficult,  temporary  divisions 
tended  to  become  permanent,  and  Christianity  presented 

*74 


NESTORIANS  AND  MONOPHYSITES 


175 

the  spectacle  of  a  number  of  separated  bodies  with  little 
knowledge  of  one  another,  preserving  and  stereotyping  a 
particular  aspect  of  a  religion  which  was  intended  to  be 
universal.  Then  came  first  the  rise  and  then  the  break-up 
of  the  centralized  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  growth 
of  new  nations,  the  rise  of  the  new  learning,  the  stimulus  of 
an  intellectual  revival,  the  revolt  against  a  system  which 
had  been  too  rigid  and  uniform  and  had  then  failed  at  its 
very  centre,  produced  an  apparently  chaotic  strife  of  con¬ 
tending  conceptions  of  the  Christian  message  and  created 
the  divided  Church  which  we  have  to-day. 

It  is  this  history  which  we  have  now  to  trace.  We  have 
to  investigate  the  causes  of  this  disunion,  to  study  the  new 
interpretations  of  the  Church  which  were  formulated,  and 
to  discover,  if  we  are  able,  the  method  by  which  these  evils 
may  be  remedied. 

I 

The  first  period  of  division  to  which  I  would  draw  your 
attention  is  that  which  has  left  the  permanent  schisms  of 
the  Nestorian,  Jacobite,  and  Armenian  Churches. 

The  doctrinal  controversies  of  the  fifth  century  are  not 
a  pleasant  page  in  Church  history.  The  issue  has  been 
confused  and  the  struggle  embittered  by  ecclesiastical 
partisanship,  by  the  jealousy  of  the  rival  patriarchates, 
and  by  political  issues.  No  attempt  was  made  to  shew  any 
fairness  towards  those  who  disagreed  or  seemed  to  disagree 
with  the  victorious  party.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  Christian  Church  had  only  been  converted 
to  Christian  teaching  for  a  short  time;  that  the  transforma¬ 
tion  of  society  had  not  been  accomplished  at  all  funda¬ 
mentally.  Heathen  passions  and  sentiments  had  not  been 
obliterated.  Christianity  had  become  a  great  popular 
movement,  and  it  was  natural  that  peoples  who  had  been 
moved  for  the  first  time  to  religious  enthusiasm  should 
exhibit  the  faults  of  a  nature  which  had  not  yet  been 
disciplined. 

As  regards  the  question  at  issue  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  more  extreme  members  of  the  Antiochene  and 
Alexandrine  churches  were  alike  guilty  of  exaggerating 


176  THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

particular  aspects  of  Christianity.  Then,  as  now,  there 
were  two  types  of  Christians.  There  were  those  who  were 
attracted  by  the  ethical  teaching  and  the  personal  example 
of  our  Lord.  There  were  those,  again,  to  whom  the  fact  of 
redemption  and  the  more  mystical  elements  in  Christianity 
made  the  greater  appeal.  Nor  was  it  unnatural  that  these 
different  aspects  should  find  their  homes  among  particular 
cities  and  peoples.  It  is  true,  again,  that  the  decision  of  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  which  emphasized  both  the  divine 
and  the  human  element  in  our  Lord's  Person,  and  kept  the 
balance  true  between  the  two  extremes  without  attempting 
an  explanation  of  what  must  always  be  an  impenetrable 
mystery,  was  the  only  possible  and  right  solution.  But  it 
may  well  be  doubted  whether  there  was  any  justification 
for  condemning  those  whose  doctrine  seemed  in  some  ways 
imperfect.  Nestorius  was  a  confused  thinker,  but  there 
is  no  trace  of  fairness  in  the  methods  of  his  opponent  Cyril. 
It  was  the  ecclesiastical  passion,  the  political  enmity  and 
racial  antipathy  that  were  aroused,  which  transformed  these 
theological  differences  into  permanent  schisms.1 

Nestorianism  represented  or  rather  exaggerated  the  form 
of  teaching  which  had  prevailed  at  Antioch,  and  in  the  Syrian 
cities  which  drew  their  inspiration  from  that  source. 

1  Much  new  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  teaching  of  Nestorius 
by  the  discovery  and  publication  of  a  work  written  by  himself  in  his 
old  age  after  the  Council  of  Chalcedon — in  fact,  his  Apology.  It  is 
preserved  in  Syriac  and  has  been  published  by  Bedjan  in  the  original, 
by  Nau  in  a  translation  ( Nestorius ,  Le  Livre  d'Heraclide  de  Damas. 
fidite  par  Paul  Bedjan.  Paris,  1910.  And  Nestorius,  Le  Livre  d’Hera - 
elide  de  Damas.  Traduit  en  Fran^ais  par  F.  Nau,  Professeur  a 
l’lnstitut  Catholique  de  Paris.  Paris:  Letouzey  et  Ane,  1910). 
Two  recent  works  may  be  mentioned.  Dr.  Bethune-Baker  {Nestorius 
and  his  Teaching.  Cambridge,  1908)  tries  to  prove  that  Nestorius 
was  not  a  Nestorian.  Professor  Loofs  ( Nestorius  and  his  Place  in  the 
History  of  Christian  Doctrine.  Cambridge,  1914)  maintains  that  he 
was  aNestorian,  and  that  that  was  the  traditional  Christian  teaching. 
Neither  is  correct.  It  is,  however,  clear  that  Nestorius  was  a 
confused  thinker.  The  standard  by  which  he  was  tried  and  con¬ 
demned  was  not  that  of  Chalcedon,  but  the  teaching  of  Cyril.  His 
treatment  was  unjust,  and  illustrates  the  evil  of  a  State-created 
orthodoxy.  The  late  Dr.  Bigg,  who  was  a  theologian  of  deep  insight, 
seemed  to  doubt  whether  the  doctrinal  definitions  of  the  fifth  century 
were  needed.  At  any  rate,  we  have  to  remember  that  they  have  left 
no  mark  on  the  Creed  and  that  the  remnant  of  the  Monophysite 
Churches  express  their  faith  in  the  same  formulary  as  we  do. 


THE  JACOBITES  177 

Banished  by  imperial  decree  from  the  Empire,  it  found  a 
home  in  the  cities  of  Northern  Mesopotamia  and  the 
revived  Persian  Empire,  where  Byzantine  influence  was 
powerless.  It  was  natural  that  the  rival  monarchy  should  be 
more  ready  to  welcome  what  Constantinople  condemned 
as  a  heresy.  In  these  districts  it  developed  on  its  own 
lines,  and  became  a  great  missionary  church,  spreading 
through  Central  Asia  as  far  as  the  frontiers  of  China.  But, 
isolated  as  it  was,  it  could  not  stand  against  the  great  wave 
of  Mohammedanism.  Had  any  idea  of  religious  toleration 
prevailed,  Nestorianism  would  hardly  have  become  a  definite 
schism,  and  would  certainly  not  have  developed  into  a 
permanent  sect.  It  may  be  possible  that  some  temporary 
advantage  arose  from  the  fact  that  it  had  to  find  an  outlet 
in  missionary  enterprise,  but,  apart  from  that,  the  influence 
of  disunion  was  disastrous.  Mohammedanism  could  spread 
easily  when  its  only  opponent  was  a  divided  and  isolated 
fragment  of  Christianity. 

Even  more  instructive  are  the  lessons  taught  by  the 
Coptic,  the  Abyssinian,  the  Syrian  Jacobite,  and  the 
Armenian  heresies.  There  are  two  points  to  be  noted.  The 
first  touches  the  doctrinal  questions  involved.  During 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  Christianity  had  deeply 
penetrated  the  Egyptian  people.  As  always  happens  in 
such  cases,  the  national  and  racial  characteristics  began  to 
express  themselves  through  the  new  medium.  First  in 
Alexandria — a  city  which  spoke  Greek  and  read  Greek 
philosophy  but  was  yet  half  Egyptian — there  grew  up  the 
Alexandrine  type  of  Christology,  mystical  and  redemptive 
in  its  character.  Then  in  Upper  Egypt  and  in  the  oases 
of  the  desert  came  the  great  wave  of  Monasticism,  with 
some  repulsive  and  some  attractive  features;  inspired  by  a 
religious  intensity  which  dwelt  always  on  the  divine  and 
neglected  the  human  element  in  life,  which  exhibited  an 
increasing  indifference  to  the  world  and  its  affairs,  and 
yearned  even  here  for  union  with  the  Deity.  It  was  these 
influences  which  formed  themselves  into  the  Monophysite 
heresy.  What  is  noticeable  is  the  way  in  which  the  national 
temperament  has  impressed  itself.  Wherever  the  Christian 

religion  takes  a  real  hold  upon  any  nation  it  is  inevitable 

12 


178  THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

that  the  national  Christianity  should  exhibit  most  promin¬ 
ently  just  those  features  which  correspond  with  the  natural 
temperament.  Then,  if  the  Church  is  too  anxious  to  con¬ 
demn  what  is  but  the  exaggeration  of  a  particular  view,  it 
will  cause  isolation  and  separation.  The  national  elements, 
instead  of  being  harmonized  and  broadened  by  contact  'with 
other  aspects  of  Christianity,  will  be  exaggerated  and  stereo¬ 
typed,  and  what  ought  only  to  have  been  an  aspect  of 
religious  teaching  will  be  hardened  into  a  heresy.  The 
first  wave  of  enthusiasm  often  presents  crude  and  un¬ 
attractive  features,  as  did  Montanism  in  Phrygia,  but  a 
wholesome  intercourse  with  the  Christianity  of  other  nations 
will,  if  it  is  allowed  to  go  on,  gradually  correct  this.  But 
an  excessive  desire  for  a  rigid  orthodoxy  will  produce  heresy 
and  schism. 

But  there  is  a  more  important  aspect  of  the  national 
character  of  Egyptian  Christianity.  The  Egyptian  nation 
began  to  find  itself  again  in  the  Christian  religion.  Sup¬ 
pressed  under  a  Greco-Roman  civilization,  it  seemed  for 
a  time  to  have  lost  itself.  But  the  new  religion  stirred  the 
emotions  and  roused  the  intellect  of  the  people,  and  they 
learnt  to  express  themselves  in  the  new  system  of  thought. 
They  resented — as  did  the  Syrian  Christians,  and  to  a  some¬ 
what  less  degree  the  Armenian — Greek  rule,  the  Byzantine 
official  and  tax-collector.  They  became  Jacobites,  while 
they  called  the  Orthodox  and  the  Greek  Melkites  or  “  king’s 
men.”  Heresy  became  a  badge  of  nationality,  Orthodoxy 
was  identified  with  foreign  domination,  and  Egypt,  resenting 
an  alien  rule  and  an  alien  Church,  easily  became  a  prey  to 
the  Mohammedan  conqueror,  who  seemed  to  promise  a 
tolerance  which  had  not  been  found  under  a  Christian 
Emperor. 

Two  lessons  are  taught  us  by  the  study  of  these  heresies. 
The  one  is  that  an  excessive  desire  for  verbal  orthodoxy 
defeats  its  own  ends.  The  temperament  which  is  too  anxious 
to  condemn  any  aberrations  from  what  it  holds  to  be  the 
correct  expression  of  the  truth  creates  these  divisions  which 
a  more  sympathetic  treatment  would  prevent.  Orthodoxy 
becomes  the  enemy  of  Catholicity.  The  second  is  that 
persecution  by  the  secular  power  damages  fatally  the  religion 


SCHISM  OF  EAST  AND  WEST 


179 

which  it  is  intended  to  support.  It  associates  it  with  all 
that  is  unpopular  in  the  government.  It  often  makes  a 
rival  religion  the  badge  of  a  national  revolt.  It  divides 
churches  by  race  and  nation.  It  strengthens  heresy  by 
uniting  it  with  nationalism. 

This  conflict  of  Catholicism  and  Nationalism  is  one  which 
meets  us  again  and  again  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  and 
it  may  be  noticed  here  how  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church 
seems  to  have  solved  this  problem  more  nearly  than  other 
branches  of  Christianity.  The  unity  of  belief,  of  custom, 
and  of  constitution,  in  the  different  branches  of  the  Eastern 
Church  is  remarkable.  Equally  remarkable  is  the  difference 
of  temperament  exhibited  by  the  Russian,  the  Roumanian, 
the  Serbian,  the  Bulgarian,  and  the  Greek.  All  these,  in  the 
absence  of  an  excessive  centralization,  have  been  able  to 
develop  as  national  Churches,  preserving  their  spiritual 
unity,  and  in  this  particular,  at  any  rate,  might  well  be  looked 
upon  as  a  model  and  example  which  other  nations  might 
follow. 

II 

The  second  great  fact  which  meets  us  is  the  schism  of 
East  and  West. 

During  the  first  two  centuries  of  the  Christian  era 
Christianity  was  mainly  a  Greek  religion.  The  great  bulk 
of  theological  writing  even  in  the  West  was  Greek,  and  its 
adherents  must  have  been  mainly  among  the  Greek  slaves, 
the  freedmen  and  tradesmen  who  formed  such  a  considerable 
section  of  the  population  of  Western  cities.  It  was  in 
Africa  first  that  an  indigenous  Latin-speaking  Church 
developed,  and  a  native  theology  which  from  the  beginning 
had  marked  characteristics  of  its  own.  Gradually  the 
differences  between  East  and  West  asserted  themselves. 
If  we  compare  Tertullian  and  Cyprian  with  Clement  and 
Origen  the  contrast  becomes  apparent.  It  was,  however, 
not  until  the  fourth  century,  and  until  the  writings  of 
St.  Augustine  had  appeared,  that  a  new  theology  could  be 
created  which  reflected  the  tone  of  Western  thought  and 
harmonized  with  its  temperament.  Here  was  a  Christian 
teaching  about  the  orthodoxy  of  which  there  could  be  no 


i8o 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


doubt,  which  yet  presented  the  Gospel  message  in  a  form 
very  different  from  anything  which  an  Eastern  theologian 
could  teach.  An  analysis  of  the  difference  does  not  concern 
us  now;  it  is  sufficient  to  remind  you  that  it  is  probably  to 
the  theology  of  St.  Augustine  that  many  of  the  character¬ 
istics  of  modern  European  thought,  not  only  religious  but 
philosophical,  are  due.  For  the  predominant,  although 
not,  of  course,  the  sole,  characteristic  of  Western  thought 
has  been  the  emphasis  that  it  has  laid  on  the  individual, 
and  ultimately  it  is  with  the  destiny  of  the  individual 
that  the  theology  of  St.  Augustine,  and  in  particular 
his  doctrine  of  grace,  is  concerned. 

The  important  point  for  our  investigation  is  that  the  West 
created  its  own  line  of  theological  thought,  and  thus  added 
another  difference  in  addition  to  those  of  national  and  racial 
temperament  between  these  two  branches  of  Christianity. 
There  is,  however,  no  reason  why  this  in  itself  should  have 
produced  a  permanent  schism.  The  two  methods  of  thought 
might  well  have  continued  side  by  side  with  one  another. 
Only  it  means  that  the  West  had  attained  its  independence 
and  might  think  it  no  longer  needed  Eastern  help  to  teach 
it  what  Christianity  was. 

A  second  influence  which  might  make  division  easy  and 
perhaps  inevitable  was  the  political  separation  of  East  and 
West.  For  some  centuries  after  the  removal  of  the  Empire 
to  Constantinople  Rome  continued  to  look  to  what  was 
nominally  still  the  Roman  Empire  for  support .  It  only  rarely 
succeeded  in  finding  it.  Gradually  the  new  nations  of 
the  West  became  stronger  and  more  civilized.  The  West 
increased  in  strength  as  the  East  declined.  The  Popes 
learnt  to  seek  help  from  the  nations  of  the  north,  until 
at  last  Leo  HI.,  by  summoning  Charlemagne  to  his  assis¬ 
tance  and  placing  the  imperial  crown  on  his  head  in  St. 
Peter’s  on  Christmas  Day,  800,  revived  the  Western 
Empire.  Henceforth  the  West  was  politically  independent 
of  the  East,  and  it  is  not  without  significance  that  it  was 
shortly  after  this  great  event  that  the  first  definite  rupture 
between  the  two  Churches  occurred.  It  is,  of  course,  true 
that  there  was  nothing  in  this  political  separation  which  need 
have  caused  a  religious  division,  but  the  pride  of  the  Bishop 


THE  “  FILIOQUE  ”  CLAUSE  181 

of  Rome  naturally  swelled  when  he  felt  himself  entirely 
independent  of  the  Eastern  Emperor,  and  the  Emperor 
must  have  bitterly  resented  the  revolt  of  the  West  from  his 
jurisdiction,  even  if  the  power  he  had  exercised  had  been 
merely  nominal.  Again,  there  was  no  cause  here  for  schism, 
but  there  were  conditions  which  made  it  easier  for  it  to 
come,  if  a  real  cause  arose. 

A  third  cause,  and  one  which  still  remains  as  the  most 
distinctive  sign  of  the  division  between  East  and  West, 
was  the  interpolation  of  the  filioque  clause  into  the  Creed 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Double  Procession,  as  it  is  called. 
I  need  not  remind  you  here  that  the  question  at  issue, 
stated  in  its  simplest  terms,  was  whether  the  Third  Person 
of  the  Trinity  could  be  more  correctly  described,  with  the 
Greeks,  as  proceeding  from  the  Father,  or,  with  the  Latins, 
as  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  Nor  need  I 
attempt  to  estimate  how  far  if  at  all  real  and  important 
differences  of  principle  might  be  considered  to  be  involved 
in  what  seems  at  first  sight  a  verbal  and  barren  dispute. 
The  important  fact  is  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
one  form  of  expression  Was  generally  adopted  by  Western 
theologians,  the  other  by  Easterns.  While  the  Greeks  laid 
emphasis  on  the  importance  of  realizing  that  there  is  one 
first  principle  in  the  Godhead,  the  Latins  were  anxious  to 
emphasize  the  equality  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  as  both 
alike  the  source  whence  flowed  the  Spirit.  It  is  difficult 
for  us  to  feel  any  reality  in  these  speculations.  I  think, 
however,  that  we  ought  to  realize  the  natural  desire  of  a 
thoughtful  Christian  to  learn  all  that  might  be  learnt  of 
the  Nature  of  God,  and  how  easy  it  was,  in  times  wrhen 
learning  had  declined,  with  the  assistance  of  faulty  methods 
of  exegesis  and  fanciful  speculation  to  elaborate  a  system  of 
knowledge  which  was  verbal  and  not  real  in  its  character. 

There  were  in  this  dispute  two  questions  at  issue.  The 
one  was  theological,  the  question  what  was  the  right  solution 
of  this  abstruse  problem.  It  may  be  safely  said  that  this 
alone  could  never  have  caused  difficulties,  and  subsequent 
history  has  shewn  that  agreement  is  easy.  It  is  to  the  great 
Greek  theologian  St.  John  of  Damascus  that  we  owe  a 
formulary  which  is  acceptable  to  both  sides.  He  taught 


182 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


that  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeded  from  the  Father  through 
the  Son,  and  these  words  have  been  accepted  as  combining 
both  statements.1  They  were  adopted  at  the  Council  of 
Florence  in  the  fifteenth  century2  and  again  at  the  Bonn 


1  S.  Joannis  Damasceni,  De  Fide  Orthodox  a  i.  12,  to  8k  tt  vev/xa  rb 

uyiov}  iKcpciVTopiKr)  rov  Kpvtpiov  rijg  9torr]rog  bvvapug  rov  7r arpog,  tic  rrarpog  fikv  8d 
viov  iKTropzvofxtvr}.  Ib.,  mo5  8k  tt vev/ux,  oi>x  8%  abrov,  aW  uig  8i’  abrov  tic  tov 
7r aTpog  ticTropevofievov.  Cont.  Manich.  5,  8 id  rov  Aoyov  abrov  t%  abrov  to 
TTVEdfia  abrov  iKTropevopitvov. 

2  Mansi,  Conciliorum  Collatio,  xxxi.  1027-1032.  “  Convenientes 

enim  Latini  et  Graeci  in  hac  sacrosancta  oecumenica  synodo,  magno 
studio  invicem  usi  sunt,  ut  inter  alia  etiam  articulus  ille  de  divina 
Spiritus  Sancti  processione  summa  cum  diligentia  et  assidua  inquisi- 
tione  discuteretur.  Prolatis  vero  testimoniis  ex  divinis  scripturis, 
plurimisque  auctoritatibus  sanctorum  doctorum  orientalium  et 
occidentalium,  aliquibus  quidem  ex  Patre  et  Filio,  quibusdam  vero 
ex  Patre  per  Filium  procedere  dicentibus  Spiritum,  et  ad  eamdem 
intelligentiam  aspicientibus  omnibus  sub  diversis  vocabulis;  Graeci 
quidem  asseruerunt  quod  id  quod  dicunt  Spiritum  Sanctum  ex  Patre 
procedere,  non  hac  mente  proferunt  ut  excludant  Filium;  sed  quia 
eis  videbatur,  ut  aiunt,  Latinos  asserere  Spiritum  ex  Patre  et  Filio 
procedere  tanquam  ex  duobus  principiis  et  duabus  spirationibus, 
ideo  abstinuerunt  a  dicendo  quod  Spiritum  Sanctum  ex  Patre 
Filioque  procedere,  ut  excludant  Patrem  quin  sit  tons  et  principium 
totius  deitatis,  Filii  scilicet  ac  Spiritus  Sancti;  aut  quod  id,  quod 
Spiritus  Sanctus  procedit  ex  Filio,  Filius  a  Patre  non  habeat;  sive 
quod  duo  ponant  esse  principia  seu  duas  spirationes;  sed  unum 
tantum  asserart  esse  principium,  unicamque  Spiritus  Sancti,  prout 
hactenus  asseruerunt.  Et  cum  ex  his  omnibus  unus  et  idem  eli- 
ciatur  veritatis  sensus,  tandem  in  infrascriptam  sanctam  et  Deo 
amabilem  eodem  sensu  eademque  mente  unionem  unanimiter 
concordarunt  et  consenserunt.  In  nomine  igitur  sanctae  Trinitatis, 
Patris  et  Filii  et  Spiritus  Sancti,  hoc  sacro  universali  approbante 
Florentino  concilio  difbnimus,  ut  haec  fidei  veritas  ab  omnibus 
Christianis  credatur  et  suscipiatur,  sicque  omnes  profiteantur,  quod 
Spiritus  Sanctus  ex  Patre  et  Filio  aeternaliter  est  et  essentiam  suam 
suumque  esse  subsistens  habet  ex  Patre  simul  et  Filio  et  ex  utroque 
aeternaliter  tamquam  ab  uno  principio  et  unica  spiratione  procedit ; 
declarantes  quod  id  quod  sancti  doctores  et  patres  dicunt  ex  Patre 
per  Filium  procedere  Spiritum  Sanctum,  ad  hanc  intelligentiam 
t.endit;  ut  per  hoc  significetur,  Filium  quoque  esse  secundum 
Graecos  quidem  causam,  secundum  Latinos  vero  principium  sub¬ 
sistence  Spiritus  Sancti,  sicut  et  Patrem.  Et  quoniam  omnia  quae 
Patris  sunt,  Pater  ipse  unigenito  Filio  suo  gignendo  dedit,  praeter 
esse  Patrem,  hoc  ipsum  quod  Spiritus  Sanctus  procedit  ex  Filio,  ipse 
Filius  a  Patre  aeternaliter  habet  a  quo  etiam  aeternaliter  genitus  est.” 

It  may  be  remarked  that  the  Council  of  Florence,  even  when  it 
recognizes  the  reasonableness  of  the  Greek  position,  ends  with  a 
strong  assertion  of  the  Western  point  of  view.  It  may  be  studied 
with  great  profit  as  shewing  admirably  the  wrong  way  of  attempting 
to  create  Christian  unity. 

The  decree  proceeds:  “  Difbnimus  insuper  explica tionem  verbor- 
um  illorum  Filioque,  veritatis  declarandae  gratia  et  imminente  tunc 
necessitate,  licite  et  rationabiliter  symbolo  fuisse  appositam.” 


INTERPOLATION  OF  THE  CREED  183 

Conference  of  the  nineteenth,  which  was  held  under  the 
presidency  of  the  great  Old  Catholic  theologian,  Dr.  Dol- 
linger,  and  was  attended  by  representatives  of  the  Eastern 
and  Anglican  Churches,  and  they  may  be  held  to  give  a  solu¬ 
tion  which  will  satisfy  the  conscience  of  East  and  West  alike.1 

But  what  brought  this  subject  into  the  arena  of  practical 
religious  life  and  made  it  such  a  cause  of  contention  was  the 
interpolation  of  the  Creed  by  the  Western  Church.  The 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  when  it  put  forward  a  creed  which 
was  accepted  as  Oecumenical  by  the  whole  Church,  East  and 
West,  condemned  not  only  those  who  did  not  accept  it, 
but  also  those  who  put  forward  any  other  faith  or  creed. 
But  this  was  just  what  had  been  done  by  altering  the 
accepted  symbol.  We  are  not  fully  acquainted  with  the 
process  by  which  the  change  came  about.  It  was  perhaps 
at  the  third  Council  of  Toledo  in  589,  when  the  Gothic  King 
Reccared  renounced  Arianism  in  the  name  of  his  nation,  that 
the  Creed  was  first  recited  in  its  interpolated  form.  At  any 
rate,  in  the  centuries  that  follow,  the  words  fdioque  gradually 
crept  into  the  Creed  as  it  was  received  in  the  Churches  of 
Spain,  Gaul,  and  Britain.  There  is  no  reason  for  thinking 
that  this  was  an  intentional  change;  rather  it  came  from 
the  influence  of  Western  theological  phraseology. 

In  the  eighth  century  the  doctrine  became  a  subject  of 
dispute  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches.  The 
insertion  was  defended  by  Paulinus,  Bishop  of  Aquileia, 

1  The  following  is  the  summary  accepted  by  the  Bonn  Conference : 

“We  accept  the  teaching  of  St.  John  Damascene  on  the  Holy 
Ghost,  as  it  is  expressed  in  the  following  paragraphs  in  the  sense  of  the 
teaching  of  the  ancient  undivided  Church. 

1.  The  Holy  Ghost  issues  out  of  the  Father,  as  the  Beginning 
1  dpxh),  the  Cause  ( alria ),  the  Source  (^yi?),  of  the  Godhead. 

2.  The  Holy  Ghost  does  not  issue  out  of  the  Son  (Ik  toO  viod)  because 
there  is  in  the  Godhead  but  one  Beginning  (  dpxv),  one  Cause  (ama), 
through  which  all  that  is  in  the  Godhead  is  produced. 

3.  The  Holy  Ghost  issues  out  of  the  Father  through  the  Son. 

4.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  the  Image  of  the  Son,  who  is  the  Image  of 
the  Father,  issuing  out  of  the  Father  and  resting  in  the  Son  as  His 
revealing  power. 

5.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  the  personal  production  out  of  the  Father, 
belonging  to  the  Son,  but  not  out  of  the  Son,  because  He  is  the 
Spirit  of  the  mouth  of  God  declarative  of  the  Word. 

6.  The  Holy  Ghost  forms  the  link  between  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
and  is  linked  to  the  Father  by  the  Son. 


184  the  divisions  of  the  church 

the  well-known  theologian  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne, 
and  became  a  subject  of  acute  controversy  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  century. 

The  incident  shews  how  a  question  which  might  seem 
of  merely  theological  import  became  one  of  popular  con¬ 
troversy  when  translated  into  worship.  The  Latin  monks 
at  Jerusalem,  where  they  had  certain  privileges  granted, 
through  the  friendship  between  the  Emperor  Charlemagne 
and  the  Caliph  Haroun-ul-Raschid,  were  accused  of  heresy, 
because  they  chanted  the  Creed  in  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  sung  in  the  Emperor’s  chapel.  They  were  supported 
by  a  council  held  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.  The  matter  was 
then  referred  to  Rome,  and  it  is  interesting  to  remark  the 
correct  answer  of  Leo  III.  He  approved,  indeed,  of  the 
doctrine,  but  no  alteration  could  be  allowed  in  the  symbol, 
no  change  should  be  made  in  the  decision  of  a  council 
illuminated  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  was  not  necessary  that 
all  doctrine  should  be  contained  in  the  Creed.  The  article 
in  particular  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  belonged 
to  those  truths  which  not  all  could  be  expected  to  under¬ 
stand,  and  are  necessary  for  salvation  only  for  those 
who  can  understand  them.  Further,  we  are  told  that  he 
set  up  in  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter  two  silver  shields  on  which 
the  Creed  was  inscribed  in  Greek  and  Latin  in  its  uninter¬ 
polated  form.1  We  may  certainly  admire  both  the  correct¬ 
ness  and  the  wisdom  of  the  Pope’s  reply,  and  can  only  regret 
that  when  the  dispute  arose  between  Nicholas  I.  and  Photius 
of  Constantinople  the  Roman  Church  had  forgotten  its  his¬ 
tory  and  was  prepared  to  defend  the  addition  of  these  words.2 

1  Mansi,  xiv.  17-22.  This  gives  an  account  of  a  conference 
between  the  envoys  of  Charlemagne  and  Leo  III.  on  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  Creed.  It  is  admitted  as  follows  by  both  sides : 

Quia  erga  utrisque  notum  est,  quod  ideo  a  vobis  ut  id  symbolum 
cantando  vel  scribendo  insera tur  illicitum  ducatur  vel  dicatur,  quia  illi 
qui  symbolum  condiderunt  non  indiderunt  ut  cetera  {sic),  et  sequentes 
principales  synodi,  Chalcedonensis  scilicet  quarta,  Constantinopoli- 
tana  quoque  quinta  et  sexta,  ut  novum  ultra  symbolum  a  quoquam 
qualibet  necessitate  seu  salvandi  homines  devotione  condere,  et  in 
veteribus  tollendo,  addendo,  mutandove  quicquam  inserere  pro- 
hibuerunt,  non  est  ibi  diutius  immorandum. 

This  text  is  clearly  corrupt  and  demands  emendation,  but  its 
meaning  is  clear. 

2  The  history  of  this  interpolation  may  be  studied  most  con¬ 
veniently  in  Burns,  An  Introduction  to  the  Creeds,  pp.  114-119. 


CLAIMS  OF  ROME 


i85 

It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  even  this  subject  of  dispute 
would  have  caused  the  schism  of  which  it  has  become  the 
symbol  if  there  had  not  been  another  and  more  vital 
question  at  issue.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  without  this 
other  motive  the  formal  adoption  of  the  interpolated  creed 
in  the  West  would  never  have  taken  place.  This  vital 
cause  culminated  in  the  ninth  century.  It  was  the  claim 
made  by  Rome  to  exercise  jurisdiction  over  the  Eastern 
Church,  and  particularly  over  the  See  of  Constantinople. 

It  is  needless  to  remark  that  the  character  of  the  position 
ascribed  to  the  See  of  Rome  in  the  earlier  centuries  is  a 
matter  of  controversy,  and  it  is  unlikely  that  any  agreement 
on  the  subject  will  be  arrived  at  as  long  as  it  remains  so. 
It  was  an  Apostolic  See,  the  only  Apostolic  See  in  the 
West ;  it  was  situated  in  the  capital  city  of  the  Empire,  the 
city  from  which  that  Empire  had  sprung  and  which  had  given 
a  name  to  its  traditions ;  its  founder  had  been  St.  Peter,  who 
undoubtedly  occupied  a  position  of  primacy  (whatever  that 
might  imply)  among  the  Apostles.  A  primacy  and  perhaps 
some  undefined  authority  was  given  to  the  See.  Disputants 
from  the  East  or  elsewhere  sought  its  support  in  controversy 
or  disputes,  as  they  did  that  of  other  patriarchates,  and 
when  the  advice  of  Peter  was  on  their  side  they  hailed  it 
with  satisfaction.  In  a  dispute  between  two  Patriarchs, 
between  Constantinople  or  Antioch  and  Alexandria,  it  was 
natural  that  Rome  should  be  appealed  to  as  arbitrator,  and 
the  opinion  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  carried  great  weight  in  a 
general  council.  All  this  is  true;  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
no  claim  to  jurisdiction  was  ever  recognized  by  the  Eastern 
Patriarchs,  or,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of  the  Council 
of  Sardica,  by  the  Eastern  Church.  It  may  be  doubted  how 
far  such  claims  had  ever  really  been  made  by  the  Bishops  of 
Rome  themselves  over  the  East. 

But  a  definite  change  came.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that 
the  first  real  break  between  East  and  West  occurred  shortly 
after  the  composition  and  publication  of  the  Pseudo-Isi- 
dorian  Decretals,  and  that  it  was  just  at  that  time  that 
Nicholas  I.  made  in  East  and  West  alike  claims  which  were 
recognized  as  novel.  Whether  he  was  acquainted  with 
these  Decretals  and  actually  appealed  to  their  support 


i86 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


must  remain  at  present  a  doubtful  question.1  We  need  not 
discuss  here  the  intricate  and  unedifying  story  of  the  quarrel 
between  Photius  and  Ignatius,  the  rival  Patriarchs  of  Con¬ 
stantinople,  which  was  the  cause  of  papal  interference.  It 
is  sufficient  to  assert  that  when  he  supported  the  appeal  of 
Ignatius  Nicholas  I.  was  right,  as  he  was  when  he  rebuked 
Carlovingian  immorality,  but  that  does  not  necessarily 
justify  his  claim  to  exercise  full  ecclesiastical  authority  in 
Constantinople,  his  rebuke  of  the  Emperor  for  holding  a 
Council  without  his  consent,  and  his  right  to  exercise  juris¬ 
diction  on  the  subject  in  dispute.  He  put  forward  preten¬ 
sions  for  which  the  Greeks  could  find  no  justification  in 
ecclesiastical  law,  and  which  they  bitterly  resented.  From 
this  time  began  the  period  in  which  the  two  Churches  were 
ever  ready  to  anathematize  one  another,  and  many  purely 
frivolous  subjects  of  controversy  were  dragged  into  the 
disputes ;  but  the  cause  of  ill-feeling  was  the  claim  of  the  Pope 
to  exercise  jurisdiction  over  the  Patriarch  and  the  resent¬ 
ment  which  that  not  unnaturally  created. 

The  breach  which  began  in  the  ninth  century  was  com¬ 
pleted  in  the  eleventh.  The  ostensible  cause  of  dispute  was 
trivial,  and  largely  turned  on  the  use  of  unleavened  bread 
in  the  Eucharist,  but  this  only  concealed  the  real  reason  of 
the  quarrel,  the  rivalry  of  the  two  Patriarchs.  No  doubt 
Michael  Cerularius  was  anxious  to  increase  and  extend  his 
power,  while  on  the  other  side  Leo  IX.  did  not  waive  any 
of  his  pretensions.  “You  are  making  an  attack  upon  me  on  a 
matter  on  which  neither  you  nor  any  other  mortal  is  entitled 
to  sit  in  judgement,”  were  his  words.2  The  papal  legates  at 

1  For  the  letters  of  Nicolas  see  Monumentci  Germaniae  Historica 
Epistolarum,  Tomi  VI.,  Partis  Alterius,  Fasciculus  /.  Karolini 
Aevi  IV.  Nicolai  Papae  Epistolae.  Berolini,  1912. 

The  question  of  indebtedness  to  the  Pseudo-Decretals  is  discussed 
by  Paul  Fournier,  “  Ltudes  sur  les  Fausses  Decretales.  V.  :  Les 
Fausses  Decretales  etle  Saint  Siege — 1.  Le  Pontificat  de  Nicolas  I.” 
( Revue  d’histoire  ecclesiastique,  viii.,  1907,  p.  19). 

M.  Fournier  finds  that  Nicolas  was  acquainted  with  the  Decretals 
and  referred  to  them,  but  that  they  did  not  alter  his  opinion  on  the 
claims  of  the  Roman  Church.  That  may  be  true.  It  is  also  true 
that  they  enabled  those  claims  to  be  asserted  with  much  greater 
appearance  of  authority  and  in  a  manner  which  caused  the  most 
bitter  resentment  on  the  part  of  the  East. 

2  Mansi,  Concilia  xix.  641.  Incauta,  impudenti  arrogantia  adeo 
caecati,  ut  non  animadveritatis  quid  et  qui  faciatis  et  cui.  Illi  nempe 


EVILS  OF  DIVISION 


187 

Constantinople  excommunicated  the  Patriarch  by  placing 
on  the  altar  of  his  own  church  during  the  divine  liturgy 
the  sentence  of  condemnation,  and  in  a  council  held  in  1054 
Michael  Cerularius  replied  and  wrote  an  account  to  the  other 
Eastern  Patriarchs.  The  breach  was  final.  Other  matters 
can  be  dragged  in,  but  the  fundamental  cause  of  difference 
between  the  two  Churches  has  been  that  the  Roman  Church 
claims  an  authority  and  jurisdiction  which  the  Eastern 
Church  absolutely  and  deliberately  refuses  to  recognize. 

The  division  between  Eastern  and  Western  Christendom 
is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  evil  of  disunion.  It  com¬ 
pelled  two  different  types  of  Christianity  to  remain  isolated 
from  one  another  without  any  opportunity  of  mutual 
influence.  Each  represented  the  development  of  particular 
elements  in  the  gospel.  Both  were  imperfect.  A  healthy 
intercourse  might  have  benefited  both.  But  in  consequence 
of  this  schism  the  Latin  and  Greek  forms  of  Christianity 
became  finally  stereotyped. 

But  the  political  result  was  an  even  greater  disaster.  To 
it  we  may  ascribe  the  inadequate  resistance  which  was 
offered  to  the  advance  of  Mohammedanism;  the  failure  of 
the  Crusades ;  that  most  deplorable  and  discreditable  exhi¬ 
bition  of  Western  violence,  the  Latin  conquest  of  Con¬ 
stantinople,  and  the  destruction  of  an  ancient  civilization 
which  it  began ;  and  the  fatal  blow  thus  struck  against  the 
power  which  had  been  for  centuries  the  bulwark  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  and  Christianity  in  the  East.  When  the  end  came  and 
the  last  assaults  of  the  Turks  were  delivered,  the  Byzantine 
Empire,  weakened,  isolated,  and  rent  with  religious  discord, 
could  offer  no  resistance.  Even  in  its  last  needs  the  Council 
of  Florence  was  used  to  extract  a  formal  submission  from 
a  weakened  adversary.  The  papal  claims  never  shewed 
any  abatement. 

But  a  second  lesson,  and  one  of  great  importance  to  our 
investigations,  is  that  this  division  really  makes  impossible 
the  application  of  the  old  theory  that  one  actual  existing 

facitis  praeiudicium  de  quo  nec  vobis  nec  cuilibet  mortalium  licet 
facere  iudicium. 

The  claims  of  Rome  over  Constantinople  are  fully  set  out  in  the 
letter  of  Leo,  op.  cit.,  pp.  635-656. 


1 88 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


body  could  be  found  which  could  claim  to  be  called  the 
Church,  and  that  no  other  religious  society  had  any  right 
to  that  name.  Of  course  if  your  mind  is  obsessed  by  the 
Roman  theory  you  are  capable  of  believing  that  the  whole 
body  of  Eastern  Christianity,  equal  in  antiquity,  undoubted 
in  orthodoxy,  having  all  the  marks  which  theology  has 
considered  notes  of  Catholicity,  distinguished  above  all 
Churches  for  its  sufferings  on  behalf  of  Christ,  has  no  claim 
to  the  title  of  Church,  and  is  a  schismatic  body  and  the 
legitimate  subject  of  proselytizing  enterprise.  Again,  I 
believe  that  ingenious  divines  have  attempted  to  enumerate 
the  number  of  bishops  in  East  and  West  at  the  time  of  the 
schism,  have  satisfied  themselves  that  the  number  of  those 
in  the  East  was  somewhat  larger  than  in  the  West,  and  on 
these  grounds  have  decided  that  the  East  represented  the 
true  Church,  and  that  the  whole  of  the  West  must  be  con¬ 
sidered  schismatic.  I  do  not  think  that  such  a  method  of 
argument  will  appeal  to  us.1 

If  we  attempt,  as  I  think  we  can,  to  look  at  the  question 
from  a  somewhat  detached  point  of  view,  we  shall  feel  that 
such  theories  are  impossible.  I  have  pointed  out  to  you  that 
up  to  this  time  it  had  been  apparently  legitimate  to  use  such 
arguments  in  the  controversies  of  the  Church.  The  society 
which  claimed  to  be  the  Catholic  Church  was  one  and 
universally  distributed,  and  the  separated  bodies  were 
small,  and  for  the  most  part  local.  It  might  seem  not 
unreasonable  for  it  to  claim  to  be  the  true  Church  and 
designate  all  other  Christians  as  schismatics.  I  suggested 
to  you  also  that  even  then  it  could  not  be  considered  an 

1  Palmer  (A  Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ ,  by  the  Rev.  William 
Palmer,  M.A.,  of  Worcester  College,  Oxford.  Third  Edition, 
Rivington,  London,  1842,  vol.  i.,  p.  164)  writes: 

‘  ‘  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Western  Church  was 
greater  than  the  Eastern  at  the  period  of  separation,  or  that  the 
number  of  its  bishops  exceeded  those  of  the  Eastern  Church.  The 
ancient  Churches  of  the  countries  which  were  at  this  time  divided 
between  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  were  about  equally 
numerous  on  each  side.” 

This  numerical  method  of  arriving  at  truth  by  counting  heads 
seems  somewhat  artificial,  but  the  conclusion  arrived  at  that  both 
sides  were  equally  schismatical  may  be  considered  satisfactory  on 
other  grounds.  We  understand,  however,  why  Newman  said  that  he 
could  not  have  written  this  work. 


THE  DIVIDED  CHURCH 


189 

entirely  satisfactory  theory,  at  any  rate  when  held  as  Cyprian 
or  Augustine  seemed  to  hold  it,  leading  as  it  did  to  such 
marvellous  statements  as  that  a  man  in  schism  who  laid 
down  his  life  for  Christ  could  have  no  hope  of  salvation. 
But  since  the  division  of  East  and  West  any  such  theory  is 
impossible.  We  cannot  say  that  one  or  other  is  the  true 
Church,  and  that  all  other  bodies  are  outside  the  fold.  If 
you  look  at  the  causes  of  division  undoubtedly  the  Western 
Church  was  primarily  to  blame,  both  at  the  time  of  the 
division,  and  always  since.  I  suppose  that  there  is  no  point 
in  theology  which  you  can  say  more  definitely  is  wrong  than 
the  addition  of  the  filioque  to  the  creed.  Nor  can  there  be 
any  doubt  both  on  historical  and  theological  grounds  that 
the  claim  made  first  in  so  definite  a  form  by  Nicholas  I., 
and  renewed  on  all  subsequent  occasions  since,  that  the 
Roman  Church  should  exercise  jurisdiction  over  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  and  the  Churches  of  the  East,  was  wrong. 
The  West  was  wrong  on  the  main  points  at  issue.  But 
anyone  who  reads  the  attacks  made  by  Michael  Cerularius 
on  the  Western  Church  will  undoubtedly  feel  that  he  is  up 
against  a  narrow  and  intolerant  exposition  of  Christianity. 
The  attitude  of  the  East  on  the  minor  points  of  the  contro¬ 
versy  may  be  comprehensible  and  even  excusable,  but  it  too 
was  certainly  wrong. 

Here,  then,  was  a  division  where  each  side  retained  all 
the  essential  elements  of  Christianity  and  all  those  charac¬ 
teristics  which  the  custom  and  voice  of  the  Church  had 
defined  as  Catholic.  The  causes  of  division  were  partly 
deep  natural  differences  of  temperament  and  thought, 
partly  political.  They  may  be  held  to  be  largely  out  of  the 
control  of  the  disputants.  The  occasions  arose  from  faults 
and  mistakes  on  both  sides.  The  division  was  exaggerated 
and  intensified  by  the  decline  of  civilization,  and  of  the 
opportunities  of  intercourse.  We  cannot  say  that  either 
side  was  exclusively  to  blame,  we  cannot  say  that  one  is 
the  true  Church  and  the  other  the  schismatic.  The  same 
problem  will  be  presented  to  us  by  many  later  events,  and 
will  compel  us  to  revise  our  definitions  and  consider  more 
carefully  What  we  mean  by  the  Church  and  what  we  mean 
by  schism. 


190 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


III 

I  pass  now  to  the  Medieval  Church.  Neither  time  nor 
space  will  allow  me  to  dwell  on  it  with  the  detail  which  was 
necessary  in  the  study  of  the  first  beginnings  of  Christianity. 
I  shall  have  to  content  myself  with  considering  the  new 
conceptions  that  it  evolved  of  the  nature  and  constitution 
of  the  Church  and  the  influence  that  it  exercised  on  the  unity 
and  divisions  of  Christendom. 

The  fundamental  fact  is  the  growth  of  the  Papacy  and 
the  transformation  of  the  Church  into  a  society  with  many 
of  the  characteristics  of  a  temporal  state.  This  Was  accom¬ 
panied  and  largely  facilitated  by  the  change  in  the  status 
of  the  clergy.  Instead  of  being  the  ministers  of  the  Church, 
they  came,  through  the  new  theory  of  ordination  which  grew 
out  of  the  teaching  of  St.  Augustine,  to  be  looked  upon  as  the 
possessors  of  mystical  and  supernatural  powers.  The  rule 
of  compulsory  celibacy  was  established.  In  the  decay  of 
learning  they  became  the  sole  representatives  of  education, 
almost  the  only  men  who  could  read  and  write,  and  this 
increased  their  authority  in  an  ignorant  world.  The 
stronger  emphasis  laid  on  the  sacramental  element  in  Christi¬ 
anity,  and  the  tendency  in  the  midst  of  a  prevalent  barbarism 
for  an  almost  magical  power  to  be  ascribed  to  the  priest, 
gave  him  a  considerable  spiritual,  and  in  consequence  also 
temporal,  influence.  The  Papacy  had  at  its  disposal  a  large 
and  disciplined  army  with  authority  over  the  lives  and  souls 
of  men,  working  for  the  most  part  for  the  benefit  of  the  com¬ 
munity  and  helping  the  nobler  elements  in  society  to  build 
up  order  out  of  chaos. 

It  is  the  Papacy  that  we  must  dwell  upon  for  the  moment. 
We  cannot  pursue  the  stages  of  its  growth  and  development ; 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  present  the  theory  that  was  ultimately 
attained,  and  this  may  be  given  us  best  by  the  definition  of 
the  Council  of  Florence.  It  is  a  formal  statement  repre¬ 
senting  the  culmination  of  medieval  belief.  It  is  of  particu¬ 
lar  interest  as  embodying  the  claims  imposed  upon  the 
Orthodox  Patriarchs  and,  although  accepted  for  a  moment, 


DEFINITION  OF  POPERY 


191 

ultimately  rejected  almost  unanimously  by  the  united  voice 
of  the  peoples  of  the  East : 

“  Further  we  define  that  the  Holy  Apostolic  See  and  the 
Roman  Pontiff  hold  the  primacy  over  the  whole  world  and 
that  the  Roman  Pontiff  himself  is  the  successor  of  the 
blessed  Peter,  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  true  Vicar 
of  Christ  and  head  of  the  whole  Church,  and  the  pastor  and 
teacher  of  all  Christians :  and  that  to  him  in  the  person  of  the 
blessed  Peter  the  full  authority  of  feeding,  ruling  and 
governing  the  universal  Church  was  delivered  by  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  as  is  contained  in  the  acts  of  the  Oecumenical 
Councils  and  in  the  Sacred  Canons.”1 

There  were  probably  two  chief  causes  which  led  to  this 
growth  of  the  Papacy:  the  one  was  the  demand  for  unity, 
the  other  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  time 
to  promote  the  efficiency  and  purity  of  the  Church,  the  reform 
and  well-being  of  society.  At  the  time  of  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire  all  centralized  power  was  destroyed; 
there  was  great  danger  of  the  complete  effacement  of  order 
and  civilization,  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome  found  himself  in  a 
position  of  opportunity  and  authority.  The  invaders  of  the 
Empire  were  either  already  Christians  or,  attracted  by  the 
glamour  and  power  of  the  Church,  ready  to  be  converted. 
They  would  respect  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  clergy 
rather  than  any  civil  rule,  and  the  bishops  stood  out  as 
teachers  of  a  higher  life.  The  Roman  See,  when  held  by  a 
man  of  ability  at  many  successive  periods,  became  the 
champion  of  the  law  of  righteousness,  and  it  was  natural  that 
able  and  good  men  should  in  such  a  position  aim  at  increasing 
the  power  which  seemed  so  beneficent,  and  that  many  men 
everywhere,  with  the  well-being  of  society  at  heart  and  feeling 
the  evil  the  world  was  suffering  from, should  help  them  in  their 
efforts.  The  rise  of  the  Papacy  in  the  early  Middle  Ages  is 

1  “  Item  diffinimus  sanctam  apostolicam  sedem  et  Romanum  ponti- 
ficem  in  universum  orbem  tenere  primatum,  et  ipsum  pontificem 
Romanum  successorem  esse  beati  Petri  principis  Apostolorum  et 
verum  Christi  vicarium  totiusque  ecclesiae  caput  et  omnium 
Christianorum  pastorem  ac  doctorem  existere  et  ipsi  in  beato  Petro 
pascendi,  regendi,  ac  gubernandi  universalem  ecclesiam  a  domino 
nostro  Jesu  Christo  plenam  potestatem  traditam  esse ;  quemadmodum 
etiam  in  gestis  oecumenicorum  conciliorum  et  in  sacris  canonibus 
continetur  "  (Mansi,  xxxi.  1031). 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


192 

entirely  rational  and  largely  admirable ;  but  if  such  a  develop¬ 
ment  takes  place  in  a  manner  inconsistent  with  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  contrary  to  its  true  teaching  and  founded 
largely  on  error,  the  ultimate  result  may  be  injurious.  We 
may  admire  Gregory  I.  and  Nicholas  I.  and  Gregory  VII., 
and  feel  that  in  the  crises  of  history  in  which  they  found 
themselves  they  acted  as  great  men,  but  the  transformation 
in  the  character  of  Christianity  brought  about  by  the  Papacy 
will  remain  an  error  and  a  disaster. 

We  may  examine  its  practical  results  and  its  theological 
sanction.  The  claim  of  the  Papacy  is  that  it  promoted 
Christian  unity.  The  verdict  of  history  must  be  that  it 
has  been  the  most  fruitful  cause  of  dissension.  The  first 
assertion  of  the  complete  papal  claim  was  the  beginning  of 
the  greatest  and  most  disastrous  schism  that  the  Church 
has  known.  We  have  already  sketched  the  course  of 
division  between  East  and  West.  Not  only  did  this  schism 
cut  off  the  West  from  contact  with  the  Churches  which  had 
possessed  independently  the  Catholic  tradition,  but  the 
continuously  asserted  claim  to  proselytize  the  Churches  of 
the  East  has  everywhere  divided  Christianity.  Roman 
claims  have  been  asserted  under  the  aegis  of  political  power, 
and  all  the  ancient  Churches  of  the  East  have  been  divided 
by  uniate  schisms.  Christianity  has  been  weakened  in  the 
face  of  Mohammedanism. 

Undoubtedly  in  the  Western  world  one  great  centralized 
ecclesiastical  state  was  created  which  for  a  time  seemed 
an  imposing  example  of  unity,  and  was  the  parent  of  much 
good ;  but  such  a  state  could  exist  only  by  the  forcible  sup¬ 
pression  of  many  wholesome  instincts,  of  national  feeling, 
and  of  religious  aspirations,  and  the  ultimate  result  of  this 
attempt  to  build  up  an  organized  spiritual  empire  on  the 
destruction  of  freedom  was  the  reaction  of  the  Reformation 
and  that  chaos  of  religious  strife  and  confusion  that  Protes¬ 
tantism  exhibits.  The  present  divided  state  of  the  Western 
religious  world  is  the  direct  result  of  the  papal  power. 

A  second  claim  of  the  Papacy  would  be  to  have  promoted 
efficiency.  We  admire  the  vigorous  action  of  Nicholas  I. 
when  he  used  the  authority  which  he  believed  that  he 
possessed  to  restrain  the  violent  passions  of  the  Carlovingian 


THE  PAPACY 


193 

princes.  The  great  men  of  the  Papacy  worked  for  right¬ 
eousness.  But  the  periods  of  darkness  and  gloom  were  far 
longer  than  the  spots  of  brightness.  In  an  over-centralized 
system  corruption  at  the  centre  poisons  the  whole  body. 
How  evil  was  the  Papacy  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries ! 
How  disastrous  the  period  of  schism  !  And  when  the  rising 
nations  of  a  newer  Europe  were  seeking  to  create  a  purer 
Church  the  Papacy,  paganized  and  corrupt,  became  the 
greatest  stumbling-block  to  reform.  When  it  began  to 
renew  itself  it  was  too  late  and  the  disaster  was  complete. 

And  these  evil  results  have  been  inevitable  because  the 
Papacy  has  always  presented  a  false  view  of  Christianity. 
Its  dogmatic  view  is  inconsistent  both  with  the  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament  and  the  customs  of  primitive  Christi¬ 
anity.  The  New  Testament  makes  St.  Peter  the  first  of 
the  Apostles,  but  it  clearly  represents  him  as  subject  to  the 
authority  of  the  Church.  The  Church  of  the  Fathers  gives 
a  primacy  of  honour  to  the  Roman  Church,  but  it  consis¬ 
tently  refuses  to  grant  it  jurisdiction,  and  no  claim  to  that 
was  ever  established  until  in  an  uncritical  age  the  Pseudo- 
Decretals  supplied  an  apparent  sanction.  No  doubt  the 
modern  apologist  would  say  that  these  false  Decretals  only 
expressed  in  a  manner  natural  in  those  days  that  develop¬ 
ment  of  Christian  polity  which  the  time  demanded,  and  the 
papacy  is  now  prepared  to  kick  away  the  steps  by  which  it 
ascended,  being  based  as  it  believes  on  the  more  sure  founda¬ 
tion  of  infallibility.  But  the  claim  to  jurisdiction  was  deeply 
resented :  it  could  never  have  established  itself  without  such 
support.  These  forgeries  were  necessary  to  give  authority 
to  a  system  fundamentally  inconsistent  with  Christianity.1 

For  what  the  Papacy  did  was  to  make  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  a  kingdom  of  the  world.  That  the  Church  represents 
on  earth  one  aspect  of  the  kingdom  that  Christ  preached,  the 
sphere  within  which  God’s  Spirit  works,  and  the  rule  of  Christ 
holds  sway  over  men’s  consciences,  has  been  maintained 
in  these  lectures ;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  the  Church 
may  be  transformed  into  a  temporal  power.  It  is,  as  we  have 

1  On  the  Roman  claims  see  Gore,  Roman  Catholic  Claims;  Father 
Pullar,  The  Primitive  Saints  and  the  See  of  Rome;  and  Robertson, 
Roman  Claims  to  Supremacy  (S.P.C.K.). 


13 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


194 

pointed  out,  instructive  to  notice  that  almost  always,  when 
we  are  particularly  told  that  our  Lord’s  words  were  directly 
addressed  to  the  Twelve,  it  was  to  rebuke  any  attempt  at 
supremacy.  The  kings  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  authority. 
Their  great  ones  have  dominion  over  them.  No  such 
position  is  intended  for  the  Christian  minister.  He  is 
appointed  to  serve  and  not  to  rule.  No  ostentatious  adoption 
of  the  name  of  servant  on  the  part  of  one  who  calls  himself 
the  Servus  servorum  Dei  will  be  an  excuse  for  seizing  power. 
Whenever  Christianity,  whether  in  the  form  of  the  Papacy, 
or  the  Episcopate,  or  the  Presbyterian  or  Puritan  divine, 
builds  itself  up  on  temporal  power,  whenever  it  seeks  the 
authority  of  this  world,  it  will  injure  its  spiritual  life.  The 
Papacy  as  authority  is  inconsistent  with  the  very  essence 
of  Christianity. 

And,  further,  the  Papacy  means  and  always  has  meant 
the  promotion  of  the  Christian  faith  by  other  than  Christian 
means.  That  rules  must  exist  in  the  Christian  community 
for  the  regulation  of  its  affairs  is  a  natural  and  necessary 
condition  of  organized  life.  There  were  customs  in  the 
Apostolic  Church.  But  that  is  a  different  thing  from 
imposing  on  all  Christian  people  laws  regulating  belief  and 
conduct.  That  is  for  the  Church  to  adopt  the  methods  of 
the  State.  The  growth  no  doubt  of  Christian  influence 
tends  to  make  the  legislature  of  the  Christian  state  conform 
to  Christian  principles;  the  criminal  laws  of  a  Christian  state 
will  be  different  from  those  of  pagans  and  Mohammedans; 
but  nothing  of  this  sort  will  justify  legislation  to  promote 
the  spread  of  Christianity  by  other  than  spiritual  means, 
to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  conscience,  to  restrict  freedom 
of  opinion,  to  oppose  Christian  principles  by  force  or  any 
other  temporal  means.  Again  and  again  in  its  history 
the  Papacy  has  adopted  such  methods  and  violated  the 
rules  which  should  guide  Christian  action.  It  has  always 
demanded,  and  continues  to  demand,  temporal  power.  If 
the  opportunity  occurs  it  is  ready  to  call  in  the  power  of  the 
State  to  increase  its  influence.  It  has  often  been  sullied 
by  allowing  persecution.  The  same  methods  and  the  same 
conception  of  Christianity  are  still  present  and  ready  to 
assert  themselves.  At  the  present  day  the  Roman  Church 


OXFORD  REFORMERS 


195 

puts  forward  whenever  it  has  the  opportunity  demands 
which  violate  the  rights  of  other  Christians,  and  will  continue 
to  act  as  a  cause  of  strife  and  division. 

IV 

The  fruits  of  the  Medieval  Papacy  are  the  Reformation 
and  the  disunion  of  Christendom  which  resulted  from  it. 
It  is  certain  salient  features  in  this  epoch  and  the  transforma¬ 
tion  of  ideas  concerning  the  Church  resulting  from  it  that  we 
have  now  to  consider. 

The  student  of  Church  history  who  is  distracted  and 
saddened  by  the  record  of  such  constantly  recurring  periods 
of  discord  as  it  presents  turns  with  relief  to  those  times 
and  places  where  more  humane  ideals  have  been  allowed 
for  a  short  time  to  prevail,  and  such  he  may  find  in  the  new 
movement  which  began  in  Oxford  before  the  world-cataclysm 
of  the  Reformation.  In  1496  Colet  returned  to  Oxford  from 
Florence  and  Italy  a  student  of  Greek  and  the  Bible,  a 
devotee  of  humane  letters,  eager  to  preach  the  Gospel  and 
ardently  desirous  to  promote  reform.  In  Oxford  and 
England  a  body  of  scholars  learnt  to  develop  ideals  and 
methods  by  which  they  might  hope  through  the  gentle  and 
quiet  influence  of  reason  to  solve  the  ecclesiastical  problems 
of  the  day.  In  England  Erasmus  learnt  those  principles 
to  which  he  consistently  adhered  throughout  his  life,  the 
desire  to  reform  not  by  the  road  of  violence  and  revolution 
but  by  the  sober  methods  of  revived  learning.  “  The  study 
of  the  life  of  Christ  would  undoubtedly  produce  that  reform 
in  life  which  would  mean  the  reform  of  the  Church.”  “  If 
princes  will  not  admit  wise  counsels,  if  churches  prefer  the 
authority  of  the  world  to  that  of  Christ,  if  theologians  and 
monks  will  not  relinquish  the  synagogue,  there  is  one  path 
left.  Sow  the  good  seed.  A  crop  will  come  up.  Educate 
youth.  Encourage  the  study  of  antiquity.  Religion  without 
piety  and  learning  without  letters  will  vanish  away.”1 

But  the  forces  of  revolution  were  too  great,  the  powers 

1  On  this  movement  see  especially  Seebohm’s  Oxford  Reformers. 
I  have  discussed  its  influence  in  “Methods  of  Early  Church  History,” 
published  in  History,  Authority,  and  Theology,  p.  232. 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


196 

of  revolt  too  strong,  the  errors  of  religion  and  life  too  deeply 
involved  for  reformation  to  be  confined  to  such  methods,  and 
Luther,  when,  one  year  after  the  publication  of  Erasmus’ 
Greek  Testament,  he  nailed  his  theses  on  the  door  of  the 
church  at  Wittenberg,  was  letting  loose  forces  too  long 
suppressed  which  reason  could  not  now  restrain  nor  modera¬ 
tion  satisfy.  On  all  sides  opinions  were  promulgated  which 
no  doubt  had  their  origin  in  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  of 
Christian  antiquity  and  drew  their  inspiration  from  it, 
but  whose  character  was  mainly  determined  by  an  opposition 
often  extravagant  to  the  extreme  opinions  which  had  been 
forced  on  the  Church.  Against  the  doctrine  of  the  visible 
Church  as  presented  in  the  Papacy  was  formulated  the 
theory  of  an  invisible  Church;  against  the  domination  of 
the  medieval  prelate,  the  more  democratic  system  of 
Presbyterianism;  against  the  claim  of  the  Papacy  to  be 
superior  to  all  Christian  monarchs,  the  monstrous  tenet 
that  a  man’s  religious  views  must  be  determined  by  the 
opinions  of  the  secular  sovereign  in  whose  territory  he 
dwelt ;  against  the  exaggerated  sacramentalism  of  the 
Middle  Age,  the  meagre  doctrines  of  Zwinglianism ;  against 
Sacerdotalism,  Protestantism;  against  a  system  of  works 
which  had  become  dead,  a  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
which  might  become  antinomian;  against  an  authority 
which  attempted  to  control  the  whole  of  human  life,  a  claim 
to  private  judgement  which  might  seem  anarchical. 

I  do  not  know  if  it  displays  an  undue  amount  of  self- 
satisfaction  on  the  part  of  a  devoted  member  of  the  English 
Church  to  claim  that  the  work  of  the  early  Oxford  Reformers 
was  not  in  vain.  In  spite  of  its  faults  and  limitations  there 
has  been  a  spirit  of  reasonableness  exhibited  in  the  formation 
and  history  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  ideal  of  many 
of  our  Reformers  had  been  the  transformation  of  our  insti¬ 
tutions  by  an  appeal  to  reason  and  history  rather  than  the 
assertion  of  a  rigid  and  narrow  dogmatic  standpoint.  We 
have  avoided  any  violent  break  with  the  past  and  have  been 
singularly  distrustful  of  a  too  narrow  standpoint.  There 
has  always  been  in  the  Church  of  England  a  strain  of  toler¬ 
ance  and  broad-mindedness,  and  this  I  cannot  help  thinking 
is  because  it  has  inherited  something  of  the  spirit  of  Colet, 


THE  INVISIBLE  CHURCH  197 

the  commentator  on  the  Romans;  of  Grocyn,  scholar  of 
Winchester  and  Fellow  of  New  College;  of  More,  of  Canter¬ 
bury  Hall,  where  Christ  Church  now  stands;  of  Linacre, 
Fellow  of  All  Souls  College;  of  Erasmus,  the  Dutchman 
who  came  to  England  to  learn  from  the  early  teachers  and 
reformers  of  Oxford. 

I  believe,  too, that  some  of  these  merits  of  our  Church  have 
been  largely  due  to  our  training  on  a  Greek  as  well  as  Latin 
basis.  Not  only  from  other  points  of  view,  but  also  largely 
from  that  of  religious  truth  and  learning,  I  feel  that  the 
disloyal  abandonment  by  our  universities  and  schools  and 
by  our  educational  authorities  of  Greek  learning  as  the  basis 
of  education  will  mean  disaster  to  the  cause  of  theological 
truth.  We  do  not  want  a  new  scholastic  period.  But  I 
do  not  think  the  danger  of  it  is  slight.  Critical  and  human¬ 
istic  theology  came  in  with  the  study  of  Greek.  If  you  base 
the  education  of  the  country  on  Latin  and  science  alone, 
I  am  afraid  that  you  may  build  up  a  scientific,  philosophic, 
and  religious  scholasticism  even  more  arid  and  uninspiring 
than  that  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

There  are  three  conceptions  of  the  Church  which  owe 
their  origin  to  the  Reformation :  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of 
an  invisible  Church, the  Calvinist ic  doctrine  of  Presbyterian¬ 
ism,  and  the  typically  English  theory  of  Independency. 
The  Lutheran  doctrine  seems  to  represent  the  somewhat 
mystical  pietism  which  has  been  one  of  the  best  products 
of  Germany.  Calvinism  corresponds  to  the  somewhat 
rigorous  logic  of  the  Gallican  nature.  Independency  or 
Congregationalism  harmonizes  with  the  exaggerated  indi¬ 
vidualism  of  this  country. 

The  doctrine  of  an  invisible  Church  grew  in  definite 
opposition  to  the  medieval  theory  of  a  visible  Church. 
Flow  could  a  body  so  corrupt,  so  worldly,  be  that  Church 
which  had  been  spoken  of  as  the  body  and  bride  of  Christ, 
the  fulness  of  Him  that  all  in  all  is  being  fulfilled?  Clearly, 
it  was  held,  it  must  be  something  different  from  that.  The 
source  of  the  new  doctrine  was  no  doubt  St.  Augustine’s 
works.*  It  was  a  conception  which  might  be  derived  from 
them  although  it  was  not  anything  that  he  had  himself 
held.  It  was  the  coetus  sanctorum ,  the  whole  company 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


198 

of  the  saints.  The  one  Catholic  Church  was  the  assembly 
of  all  faithful  Christians,  who  expect  salvation  from  Christ ; 
it  was  washed  by  His  Blood,  and  was  sanctified  as  such  by 
His  Spirit.  Its  unity  is  one  of  faith  and  love.  Its  continuity 
is  the  power  to  call  forth  faith.  It  is  not  dependent  upon 
the  clergy.  It  exists  wherever  men  believe  in  the  forgive¬ 
ness  of  God  and  live  in  love  with  one  another,  wherever  the 
Word  of  God  is  preached  and  the  Sacraments  are  duly 
administered.  The  members  of  this  Church  are  known  to  God 
and  to  Him  only:  they  have  only  an  imperfect  knowledge 
of  one  another.  It  is  not  the  same  as  the  visible  Church. 
That  is  a  community  of  both  good  and  bad.  The  bad  are 
in  the  Church  although  they  do  not  belong  to  its  true  mem¬ 
bership.  The  Church  of  believers  alone  is  the  true  Church 
Universal  and  Catholic.1 

It  will  be  seen  how  this  theory  appeared  to  solve  for 
Reformation  churches  the  question  of  Christian  unity. 
There  was  now  no  longer  any  one  visible  Church.  There 
were  many  separate  societies  which  might  bear  the  name 
of  Church.  Each  of  them  might  contain  members  of  the 
true  Church.  That  was  one  body;  and  all  those  notes  of 
unity  and  purity  which  we  find  in  the  New  Testament  can 
be  ascribed  to  it ;  for  its  members  are  all  one  in  Christ.  Also, 
as  the  Church  was  not  dependent  on  its  ministry,  the  ministry 
might  vary.  So  at  the  present  day  in  different  churches 
which  claim  to  be  Lutheran  the  ministry  varies;  some  are 
Episcopalian,  some  are  not. 

The  rise  of  such  a  doctrine  was  natural,  and  it  seemed 
to  solve  many  questions.  But  it  is  not  adequate.  When  we 
read  the  New  Testament  it  becomes  quite  clear  that  it  is 
no  invisible  society  that  the  writers  mean  when  they  speak 
of  the  Church.  It  was  a  definite,  concrete  visible  body. 
Moreover,  Lutheranism  has  never  succeeded  in  solving  the 
relation  between  this  invisible  Church  and  the  visible  society. 

1  So  the  Augsburg  Confession,  1531.  Art.  vii.:  “Item  docent, 
quod  una  sancta  ecclesia  perpetuo  mansura  sit.  Est  autem  ecclesia 
congregatio  sanctorum,  in  qua  evangelium  recte  docetur,  et  recte 
administrantur  sacramenta.  Et  ad  veram  unitatem  ecclesiae,  satis 
est  consentire  de  doctrinaevangeliiet  administratione  sacramentorum. 
Nec  necesse  est  ubique  esse  similes  traditiones  humanas,  seu  ritus 
aut  ceremonias,  ab  hominibus  institutas  ”  ( Sylloge  Confessionum, 
Oxford,  1827,  p.  125). 


CALVINISM 


*99 

The  true  Church  has  external  marks  by  which  it  may  be 
recognized — the  pure  doctrine  which  is  preached  and  the 
administration  of  Sacraments  in  accordance  with  the  Gospel 
of  Christ.  It  sometimes  seems  as  if  the  external  society  is 
identified  with  the  invisible  Church. 

This  appears  very  much  the  case  with  Calvinism.  Calvin 
seems  to  have  held  that  there  was  one  general  visible  Church. 
This  Church  is  extended  and  scattered  throughout  the  world, 
although  united  in  one  spirit  and  faith.  It  is  the  Church  of 
those  who  are  saved  and  there  is  no  salvation  apart  from  it. 
No  one  should  separate  himself  from  this  society,  and  live 
apart,  but  hold  to  it  against  all  others  and  preserve  with  care 
the  unity  of  the  Church,  submit  himself  to  its  doctrine  and 
discipline  and  bend  his  neck  to  the  yoke  of  Christ.  All  men 
must  separate  themselves  from  those  who  are  outside  the 
Church,  and  must  obey  it  against  the  decrees  of  the  civil 
magistrates.  All  who  separate  themselves  from  it  openly 
disobey  the  commands  of  God. 

It  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  concern  to  know  which  is  the 
true  Church;  for  many  societies  assume  this  name.  Its 
notes  are  that  in  it  the  pure  Word  of  God  is  preached  and 
the  Sacraments  are  duly  administered  according  to  the 
commands  of  Christ ;  that  it  exhibits  the  right  ecclesiastical 
discipline,  that  all  its  members  do  all  things  according  to 
the  Word  of  God  and  recognize  Christ  as  the  sole  head. 

The  government  of  this  Church  should  be  spiritual  and 
according  to  the  Word  of  God.  In  it  there  are  "  pastors  ” 
and  “  teachers  ”  who  preach  the  pure  Word  of  God  and 
administer  the  Sacraments.  The  government  of  the  Church 
is  in  the  hands  of  elders  or  presbyters  and  deacons,  who 
administer  its  discipline.  All  Christian  ministers  must  be 
called  to  their  office  by  a  proper  Church  election  with  the 
fitting  prayer  and  order.  All  Christian  ministers  are  equal 
under  Christ,  the  One  Universal  Bishop  and  Head  of  the 
Church.1 

The  system  presented  to  us  is  that  of  a  narrow,  well- 
ordered  society.  A  visible  Church  with  a  definite  ministry  of 
divine  appointment.  No  other  Church  can  claim  to  be  true. 


1  "  Confessio  Belgica,”  xxvii.-xxxi.  (op.  cit.,  pp.  344-348). 


200  THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Independency  was,  as  has  been  stated,  a  form  of  Church 
policy  of  purely  English  origin.  Its  first  exponent  was 
Robert  Browne,  and  hence  it  became  known  in  its  earlier 
form  as  Brownism.  It  developed  in  opposition  to  the  newly 
reformed  English  Church  and  to  any  parochial  and 
territorial  system.  It  inspired  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who  were 
prevented  by  the  State  from  forming  their  own  religious 
societies,  and  therefore  it  became,  but  in  a  modified  form, 
the  earliest  religious  system  of  America;  and  during  the 
Commonwealth  the  Independents  formed  the  opposition 
against  the  spiritual  tyranny  of  Presbyterianism. 

It  recognizes  the  Church  in  two  forms:  on  the  one  side 
the  Church  which  is  the  body  of  Christ,  the  whole  company 
of  the  redeemed,  an  invisible  society;  on  the  other  side 
the  Church  as  a  body  of  the  faithful  that  meet  together  in 
the  service  of  God.  It  is  not  parochial  or  territorial.  The 
English  parish  contained  many  who  were  evil  in  their  lives 
and  in  no  way  members  of  Christ’s  Church.  A  true  Church 
is  formed  by  the  meeting  together  of  those  who  believe  in 
Christ  and  accept  Him.  When  two  or  three  meet  together 
in  Christ’s  Name  He  is  in  the  midst  of  them.  These  con¬ 
stitute  a  Church.  They  have  a  right  to  exercise  all  true 
privileges  of  a  Christian  Society.  They  appoint  their  own 
officers  and  administer  their  own  Sacraments.  No  other 
body  has  any  authority  over  them.  It  is  desirable  that 
members  of  different  Churches  should  meet  together  for 
advice  and  council,  but  no  such  combination  can  exercise 
any  control  over  any  independent  society.  Each  society 
is  independent,  autonomous,  complete.  No  one  can  add 
anything  to  it  or  take  anything  from  it.1 

Here  we  have  the  principle  of  the  independence  of  each 
separate  community  in  its  most  extreme  form  and  the  most 
direct  contrast  to  the  medieval  Church  systems.  In  these 
three  forms  of  Church  order — Lutheranism,  Presbyterianism, 
and  Independency — we  have  the  three  great  changes  made 
by  the  Reformation.  The  one  substitutes  the  doctrine  of 
an  invisible  Church  for  the  visible  Catholic  Church,  the 

1  An  interesting  exposition  of  these  principles  is  that  by  John 
Owen,  An  Inquiry  into  the  Original  Nature,  Institution,  Power,  Order, 
and  Government  of  Evangelical  Churches  (London,  1681). 


SECTARIANISM 


201 


second  attempts  to  build  up  in  opposition  to  the  medieval 
system  a  strongly  organized  democratic  Church  government, 
the  third  presents  the  principle  of  free  combination  and  local 
independency  in  its  most  extreme  form.  This  is  the  first 
great  change,  a  change  due  to  a  spirit  of  reaction  from  the 
secularized  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  its  transformation 
into  a  kingdom  of  this  world. 

A  second  result  was  the  development  of  sectarianism  in 
theology.  Up  to  this  time  the  Church  had  departed  little, 
so  far  as  formularies  went,  from  the  doctrinal  standards 
of  the  undivided  Church.  The  basis  of  belief  was  the  Catholic 
Creed.  It  is  true  that,  as  has  been  recorded,  an  important 
and  indefensible  change  had  been  made  by  the  addition  of 
the  ftlioque  clause.  At  the  fourth  Later  an  Council  again  in 
1215,  as  the  result  of  one  of  the  most  unjust  controversies 
which  has  ever  degraded  Christianity,  Transubstantiation 
had  become  part  of  the  official  teaching  of  the  Church,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  Council  of  Florence  at  the  end  of  this 
period  that  any  formal  doctrinal  sanction  had  been  given 
to  the  claims  of  the  Roman  Bishop.  Up  till  then  it  had  been 
a  part  of  the  canon  law  but  not  a  part  of  the  Faith.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  in  all  this  period  there  was  a  wild  prodi¬ 
gality  of  theological  speculation,  and  that  many  additions 
had  been  made  to  the  popular  religion  or  superstitions; 
but  the  fact  remains  that  formally  the  Creed  of  the  Church 
was  almost  unchanged,  and  had  a  reformation  arisen  of  the 
kind  that  Erasmus  had  imagined  the  accretions  on  Christian 
teaching  and  all  the  barbarism  of  the  schoolmen  might  have 
melted  away  under  the  influence  of  humane  letters,  the 
methods  of  the  new  philosophy,  the  sober  criticism  of  history, 
and  the  simple  story  of  the  Gospels. 

But  the  actual  methods  of  the  Reformation  changed  all 
this.  In  order  to  protest  against  medievalism  it  began  the 
process  of  codifying  and  defining  medieval  thought.  Every 
definition  which  was  intended  to  protect  the  Christian 
conscience  against  scholasticism  really  imposed  upon  it 
some  measure  of  what  it  attacked.  Each  new  church  or 
society  that  grew  up  found  it  necessary  to  define  its  belief 
and  position.  The  Roman  Church  in  reply  found  it  necessary 
also  to  defend  itself,  to  condemn  the  heresies  of  those  who 


202  THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

had  separated  from  it,  and  to  define  its  own  beliefs.  The 
result  was  the  creation  of  a  multitude  of  confessions  and 
formularies  in  addition  to  the  one  Catholic  Creed  which  had 
been  the  centre  of  union  of  the  whole  Church. 

The  difference  in  their  character  and  influence  as  compared 
with  the  old  Christian  Creed  has  been  profound  in  the  history 
of  modern  Christianity.  They  were  articles  of  division, 
the  Creed  was  an  article  of  union.  It  concentrated  attention 
on  the  fundamental  beliefs  of  Christianity:  they  argued 
out  all  questions  on  which  difference  of  opinion  might  grow 
up.  The  result  has  been  to  burden  the  world  with  a  number 
of  formularies  which  have  for  the  most  part  ceased  to  respond 
to  the  aspirations  and  beliefs  of  those  societies  which  still 
appear  tenaciously  to  cling  to  them.  Then  these  articles, 
some  more,  some  less,  attempted  to  cover  the  whole  ground 
of  Christian  life  and  position.  They  are  long,  sometimes 
very  long,  amounting  to  theological  treatises.  Some,  like 
the  Calvinistic  articles,  are  constructed  with  the  aim  of 
excluding  any  who  deviate  however  slightly  from  strict 
orthodoxy;  others,  like  our  Thirty-nine  Articles,  aim  rather 
at  inclusion,  but  all  alike  contain  many  things  which  can 
in  no  way  be  described  as  necessary  for  salvation.  I  do 
not  doubt  that  one  of  the  first  steps  towards  Christian  union 
must  be  to  recognize  that  these  formularies  are  all  obsolete.1 

A  third  result  of  the  Reformation  was  the  transformation 
of  the  Roman  Church.  It  had  been  the  Catholic  Church. 
It  became  a  sectarian  society.  The  process  began  at  the 
Council  of  Trent.  That  Council  was  summoned  to  reform 
the  Church.  There  were  hopes  that  it  might  have  so  acted 
as  to  put  an  end  to  schism  and  separation,  and  there  were 
moments  and  parties  which  might  have  accomplished  much 
in  that  direction.  But  it  met  too  late,  and  Italian  influences 
won  the  day.  It  met  at  Trent,  a  German  city  under  the 

1  So  Erasmus  writes  (I  owe  the  quotation  to  Curtis,  History  of 
Creeds  and  Confessions,  p.  418) :  “The  Christian  creed  began  to  reside 
in  writings  rather  than  in  men’s  minds,  and  there  were  wellnigh  as 
many  faiths  as  there  were  men.  Articles  grew  but  sincerity  declined. 
Contention  boiled  over,  charity  was  frozen.  The  doctrine  of  Christ, 
a  stranger  formerly  to  battles  over  words,  came  to  be  made  dependent 
on  defences  of  philosophy.  This  was  the  first  downward  step  towards 
the  ruin  of  the  Church.  At  last  it  came  to  sophistical  contentions : 
thousands  of  articles  of  faith  rushed  into  publicity.” 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT  203 

jurisdiction  of  the  Emperor,  but  situated  so  near  Italy  that 
an  Italian  majority  and  papal  influence  was  secured.  It 
accomplished  a  considerable  amount  of  reform  and  made  the 
Roman  Church  an  efficient  and  well-managed  society. 
Many  medieval  abuses  and  some  superstitions  were  swept 
away.  But  it  transformed  the  Catholic  Church  of  the  West 
into  the  Roman  Church.  Instead  of  presenting  to  the 
aggressive  sectarianism  of  the  separated  bodies  an  example 
of  historical  catholicity,  it  followed  their  example  by 
modifying  and  narrowing  its  creed.  The  decrees  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  lay  down  a  well-considered  and  coherent 
doctrinal  system,  but  in  doing  so  narrow  fatally  the  basis 
of  Church  union.  They  built  up  a  well-ordered  separated 
society  which  can  never  hope,  so  long  as  its  basis  remains 
as  it  is,  to  be  more  than  one  among  a  number  of  competing 
units.  While  asseverating  more  loudly  than  ever  before 
its  claim  to  be  the  one  Catholic  Church,  it  is  cut  off  from 
the  hope  of  being  the  centre  of  Christian  unity. 

This  process  was  helped  by  the  growth  of  religious  perse¬ 
cution.  The  medieval  Church  had  already  used  the  civil 
power  to  suppress  religious  error.  The  Pope  claimed  to 
have  the  right  to  authorize  the  subjects  of  any  heretical 
ruler  to  revolt  from  him  and  to  release  them  from  their  oath 
of  allegiance.  The  natural  result  was  the  penal  laws  against 
Catholics.  Persecution  bred  persecution.  Both  sides  ap¬ 
pealed  to  arms,  and,  as  invariably  happens  in  such  cases, 
all  power  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  more  violent  elements. 
The  rise  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  strengthened  the  extreme 
party,  brought  great  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the  Church, 
and  made  it  from  certain  points  of  view  a  highly  fficient 
body;  but  the  Jesuits  alienated  as  much  as  they  attracted, 
and  emphasized  just  those  elements  which  would  separate 
the  Church  most  effectually  not  only  from  healthy  human 
aspirations  but  also  from  large  sections  of  Christianity. 

Totlie  Council  of  Trent  is  due  another  movement,  instituted 
no  doubt  with  the  most  admirable  intentions  for  reform, 
but  probably  ultimately  disastrous  to  the  well-being  of  the 
Church  and  its  influence  on  the  world.  A  wise  observer 
is  reported  to  have  said  that  by  the  institution  of  ecclesias¬ 
tical  seminaries  the  Council  exercised  greater  influence  than 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


204 

by  any  other  of  its  decrees.  Up  to  that  time  the  clergy  had 
been  educated  in  the  universities;  they  were  in  touch  and 
sympathy  with  whatever  learning  there  was  in  the  world 
and  were  not  out  of  touch  with  other  developments  of  human 
life.  It  is  remarkable  and  deplorable  that  just  at  the 
moment  when  the  influence  of  learning  on  life  was  becoming 
greater  and  there  was  a  greater  need  for  an  educated  clergy 
a  decree  should  have  been  issued  which  would  insure  that 
all  the  priests  of  the  Roman  Church  should  be  brought  up 
in  a  narrow  system  of  thought  and  learning,  alien  from  all 
reality,  and  the  division  between  religion  and  reality  should 
begin. 

It  is  still  more  remarkable  that  at  the  present  day  the 
English  episcopate  incapable  of  reading  the  lessons  of  history 
should  have  determined  to  impose  the  same  system  on  the 
English  Church.  Up  to  now  the  chief  home  of  theological 
instruction  for  the  Church  of  England  has  been  the  univer¬ 
sities.  Now,  when  all  other  religious  bodies  are  hastening 
there  to  get  what  they  can,  the  whole  efforts  of  a  majority 
of  the  English  episcopate  are  being  directed  to  prevent  a 
theological  training  under  the  influence  of  universities. 

The  process  began  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  completed 
at  the  Vatican  Council  of  1870.  There  were  still  some  stones 
in  the  structure  of  the  Roman  Church  which  had  not  been 
laid  in  their  places  at  Trent.  There  had  been  much  dispute 
as  to  whether  the  authority  of  bishops  came  direct  from 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  only  immediately  through  the 
Bishop  of  Rome.  The  bishops  of  France  and  Spain,  who 
adhered  to  the  Catholic  tradition,  were  too  strong  for  the 
innovators  and  the  matter  had  to  be  shelved.  The  relation 
of  the  Pope  to  a  General  Council  had  not  been  settled.  His 
personal  infallibility  had  not  been  defined.  All  these 
defects  were  remedied  by  the  dogma  promulgated  in  1870. 
The  Pope  was  made  superior  to  a  General  Council,  and  it 
was  decreed  that  the  Roman  Pontiff,  when  he  speaks  ex 
cathedra — that  is,  when,  fulfilling  the  functions  of  pastor  and 
doctor  of  all  Christians  by  virtue  of  his  supreme  apostolic 
authority,  he  defines  the  doctrine  of  faith  or  morals  to  be 
held  by  the  Universal  Church,  through  the  divine  assistance 
promised  to  him  in  the  person  of  the  blessed  Peter — is 


CAUSES  OF  DIVISION 


205 

strengthened  by  that  infallibility  with  which  the  Divine 
Redeemer  wished  His  Church  to  be  equipped  in  defining 
doctrine  concerning  faith  and  morals;  and  that  therefore 
the  definitions  of  that  Roman  Pontiff  are  irreformable  in 
themselves  and  not  by  consent  of  the  Church.1 


V 

We  have  reviewed  in  a  manner  necessarily  imperfect  and 
cursorily  the  characteristics  of  those  epochs  in  Church 
history  which  have  produced  the  great  divisions  of  Christi¬ 
anity.  We  must  ask  now  what  are  the  main  causes  which 
have  created  such  divisions ;  why,  when  the  great  body  of 
Christians  were  able  to  remain  united  for  some  thousand 
years,  and  whatever  schisms  arose  during  that  period  were 
for  the  most  part  small  or  temporary,  there  should  now  be 
this  immense  and  disastrous  state  of  disunion. 

It  is,  of  course,  obvious  that  opinions  on  religious  points 
must  vary.  Different  churches  and  different  times  are 
influenced  by  different  aspects  of  the  Gospel.  Particular 
nations  and  peoples  have  exhibited  under  the  form  of 
Christianity  their  more  prominent  racial  characteristics. 
But  the  variations  which  thus  arise  will  rarely  be  important 
enough  in  themselves  to  cause  divisions:  they  will  generally 
be  transitory  and  ephemeral.  The  question  rather  is  how 
comes  it  that  there  should  be  these  tremendous  separations 
amongst  men  who  all  alike  draw  their  inspiration  from  the 
same  sacred  books  and  are  adherents  of  the  same  Lord  and 
Master.  It  is  not  a  question  why  some  should  and  some 
should  not  accept  Christ,  but  why  when  men  have  accepted 

1  “  Itaque  Nos  traditioni  a  fidei  Christianae  exordio  perceptae  fideli- 
ter  inhaerendo,  ad  Dei  Salvatoris  nostri  gloriam,  religionis  Catholicae 
exaltationem  et  Christianorum  populorum  salutem,  sacro  approbante 
Concilio,  docemus  et  divinitus  revelatum  dogma  esse  definimus: 
Romanum  Pontificem,  cum  ex  Cathedra  loquitur  id  est,  cum  omnium 
Christianorum  Pastoris  et  Doctoris  munere  fungens  pro  suprema  sua 
Apostolica  auctoritate  doctrinam  de  fide  vel  moribus  ab  universa 
Ecclesia  tenendam  definit,  per  assistentiam  divinam,  ipsi  in  beato 
Petro  promissam,  ea  infallibilitate  pollere,  qua  divinus  Redemptor 
Ecclesiam  suam  in  definienda  doctrina  de  fide  vel  moribus  instructam 
esse  voluit:  ideoque  ejusmodi  Romani  Pontificis  definitiones  ex  sese, 
non  autem  ex  consensu  Ecclesiae,  irreformabiles  esse.  Si  quis 
autem  huic  nostrae  definitioni  contradicere,  quod  Deus  aver  tat, 
praesumpserit ;  anathema  sit." 


206 


THE  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Him  they  should  exhibit  such  irreconcilable  opposition  to 
one  another,  and  should  not  remain  one  and  united  as  loyal 
servants  to  their  Master. 

I  would  venture  as  a  conclusion  to  our  lecture  of  to-day 
to  suggest  the  following  reasons. 

The  first  is  the  substitution  for  the  Christian  Creed  as  the 
basis  of  union  of  a  number  of  propositions  on  many  disputed 
points.  In  the  undivided  Church  the  one  dogmatic  formula 
which  was  imposed  was  the  Creed.  It  concentrated  men’s 
minds  on  the  fundamental  faith  upon  which  Christianity 
was  based,  the  worship  of  one  God,  the  life  and  death  of 
Christ  and  the  revelation  through  Him,  the  Spirit, the  Church, 
eternal  life.  The  centre  of  its  teaching  is  Christ.  As  early 
as  the  fifth  century  there  was  a  certain  over -tendency  to 
define  and  it  was  reflected  in  the  first  great  divisions.  The 
interpolations  of  the  Creed  in  an  unauthorized  manner 
caused  the  schisms  of  East  and  West.  It  was  the  attempt 
made  by  the  medieval  Church  to  substitute  for  the  practice 
of  faith  in  Christ  a  complicated,  rigid,  and  unyielding  system 
of  theology  and  life,  and  to  impose  this  on  every  man,  that 
ultimately  caused  the  Reformation.  It  was  the  continuance 
of  this  process  in  even  more  rigid  ways  that  stereotyped  the 
divisions.  Where  there  had  been  one  system  of  thought 
there  now  sprung  up  many.  Volumes  are  filled  with  the 
confessions  of  faith  thus  produced.  Until  the  Church  is 
prepared  to  be  content  with  the  Christian  Creed  and  dispense 
with  articles,  formularies  of  faith,  confessions,  decrees  of 
councils,  defining  all  those  things  which  need  not  be  defined, 
these  divisions  will  continue. 

A  second  reason  that  I  would  give  is  the  attempt  to  pro¬ 
pagate  truth  and  reform  error  by  unspiritual  means.  The 
schisms  of  the  fourth  and  following  centuries  became  far 
more  serious  because  the  power  of  the  State  was  used  to 
create  union.  It  was  persecution  which  consolidated 
Donatism  and  turned  the  dissentients  of  Egypt  and  Syria 
into  permanent  separated  bodies.  During  the  Middle  Ages 
a  strong  temporal  power  preserved  the  external  unity  of 
the  State  for  many  centuries,  but  it  did  so  by  suppressing 
movements  which  when  they  burst  forth  were  all  the  stronger 
for  the  violence  with  which  they  had  been  restrained. 


CATHOLICITY 


207 

We  need  not  dwell  longer  on  the  record  of  violence  and 
persecution  that  the  Reformation  history  so  often  exhibits. 
It  is  difficult  and  it  is  not  necessary  for  our  purpose  to 
apportion  the  degree  of  blame  when  all  are  guilty.  It  is 
enough  to  impress  upon  you  that  the  memory  of  repression, 
of  persecution,  of  intolerance,  of  unfairness,  has  created 
deep  feelings  of  resentment  which  it  will  take  the  exercise 
of  much  Christian  charity  to  obliterate. 

And  then,  thirdly,  I  should  put  as  a  cause  of  division 
inadequate  theories  about  the  Church.  These  have  been 
of  two  kinds.  The  medieval  theory  attempted  to  turn  the 
Church  into  a  secular  society.  It  summoned  to  its  aid 
spiritual  and  secular  weapons.  It  left  little  room  for  freedom. 
In  reaction  from  that  came  the  Protestant  doctrines  of  an 
invisible  Church  and  of  Independency.  They  sought  all 
unity  in  the  mystical  and  the  unseen,  and  provided  a  theo¬ 
retical  system  which  might  seem  to  justify  visible  disunion. 

I  have  attempted  in  my  earlier  lectures  to  depict  to  you 
the  conception  of  a  Catholic  Church  as  the  earlier  centuries 
presented  it  to  us.  No  doubt  even  thus  it  was  but  an 
imperfect  representation  of  the  mind  of  Christ.  But  it 
combined  the  conception  of  unity  with  much  freedom  of 
life  and  thought.  The  student  of  the  theology  of  the  age 
of  the  Fathers  knows  well  how  great  were  the  varieties  of 
belief  and  practice  that  existed  within  the  unity  that  loyalty 
to  Christ  had  created.  Unity  was  fostered  and  preserved 
because  it  was  recognized  that  Christ  had  intended  to  form 
a  visible  society  in  which  all  mankind  might  be  bound 
together  in  the  bonds  of  brotherly  love,  and  that  it  was  a 
fundamental  duty  to  preserve  the  unity  of  that  society. 

The  goal  marked  out  for  the  modern  Church  in  seeking  to 
repair  the  breaches  of  the  past  must  be  to  learn  the  simplicity 
of  the  gospel  which  is  in  Christ,  to  lay  aside  all  but  spiritual 
weapons  in  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  to  restore  to  the  world 
that  conception  of  unity  in  one  universal  Church  which 
represents  most  truly  the  mind  of  Christ. 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— I. 

“  Whosoever  shall  call  upon  ihe  name  of  the  Lord  shall  he  saved.*’ — 
Rom.  x.  13. 

The  teaching  of  the  Creed.  The  notes  of  the  Church :  One,  Holy 
Catholic,  Apostolic.  The  Holiness  of  the  Church.  The  Catholicity. 
The  Apostolicity. 

The  Unity  of  the  Church.  The  Problem.  The  Roman  solution. 
The  Branch  theory.  The  Protestant  view.  Unity  an  ideal. 

Of  whom  the  Church  consists.  The  meaning  of  schism.  The  sin 
ofschism.  The  word  “church.”  Illegitimate  usage.  Our  present  duty . 

The  ideal  Church.  What  is  it  like  ?  The  sources  of  our  knowledge. 
The  right  temper. 

Unity  of  faith.  The  Holy  Scriptures.  The  Canon.  The 
Apocrypha.  Inspiration.  The  Anglican  formula. 

The  Creed.  Its  authority.  Its  wide  acceptance.  Its  intrinsic 
merits.  Condemnation  of  any  other  creeds.  The  Chalcedon  rule. 
All  other  confessions  of  faith  to  be  dispensed  with. 

Objections  to  the  Creed.  The  dislike  of  General  Councils.  The 
Modernist.  The  desire  for  a  creedless  Church. 

Conclusions.  The  reality  of  our  common  Christianity. 

In  the  previous  lectureswe  have  reviewed  the  history  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  Church.  We  dwelt  at  some  length 
on  the  formative  periods  of  Christianity,  but  were  compelled 
to  traverse  more  rapidly  the  long  history  of  religious  divisions. 
It  was  necessary  to  lay  our  foundations,  to  ascertain  care¬ 
fully  the  contents  and  limitations  of  the  authoritative 
teaching  of  our  Lord,  and  of  the  customs  and  regulations 
of  the  Apostolic  period,  to  understand  the  principles  and 
estimate  the  failures  of  the  great  Catholic  Church  as  history 
has  depicted  it,  and  to  analyze  the  causes  of  disunion.  We 
now  come  to  the  constructive  part  of  our  work.  We  have  to 
define  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Church.  We  have  to  attempt 
to  picture  the  Church  as  it  ought  to  be.  Our  aim  should  be 
that  all  the  people  of  this  country  should  be  united  in  one 

Church  of  England,  that  all  the  peoples  of  the  world  should 

208 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  THE  CHURCH  209 

be  bound  together  in  one  Catholic  Church.  That  is  our 
ideal.  How  may  it  be  attained  ?  And  what  should  the 
Church  be  like  in  which  they  are  to  be  united  ? 

I 

W$  state  in  the  Creed  that  we  believe  in  One,  Holy, 
Catholic,  Apostolic  Church.  By  that  we  mean  in  the  first 
place  that  Christ  intended  to  found  a  society  which  should 
unite  His  followers  in  the  bonds  of  fellowship  and  brother¬ 
hood.  This  I  discussed  in  my  first  lecture  and  to  the 
best  of  my  ability  shewed  that  it  was  part  of  Our  Lord’s 
purpose.  We  also  state  that  that  society  is  One,  Holy, 
Catholic,  and  Apostolic.  Such  a  statement  appears  at 
first  sight  to  be  so  absolutely  at  variance  with  facts  that 
we  must  sometimes  wonder  how  we  can  have  the  effrontery 
to  make  it.  There  are  many  Christian  bodies,  not  one. 
Some  of  them  claim  to  be  the  true  Church  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  others.  None  of  them  can  in  any  complete  sense  claim 
to  be  holy;  they  all  alike  contain  many  unworthy  members. 
The  word  "  catholic  ”  means  universal.  It  is  clear  that  in  no 
real  sense  can  such  an  epithet  be  justified.  When  the  Church 
is  said  to  be  Apostolic,  it  means  that  it  possesses  uncorrupted 
the  teaching  of  the  Apostles.  There  is  so  much  diversity 
between  different  religious  bodies  in  their  teaching  that  it 
is  obvious  that  in  no  real  sense  can  most  of  them  exactly 
reproduce  the  Apostolic  doctrine;  and  a  natural  suspicion 
is  aroused  as  to  whether  any  of  them  do.  Clearly  the  state¬ 
ment  that  we  make  in  the  Creed  is- somewhat  hazardous. 

Let  us  examine  each  of  these  ideas  in  succession  and  see 
if  there  is  any  legitimate  sense  in  which  they  may  be  used. 
What  do  we  mean  by  saying  that  the  Church  is  Holy  ?  The 
basis  of  the  idea  is  clearly  biblical.  In  the  First  Epistle  of 
St.  Peter  we  read,  “As  he  which  calleth  you  is  holy,  so  be 
ye  holy  in  all  manner  of  conversation.”  Thrbughout  the 
New  Testament  Christians  are  spoken  of  as  “  the  saints,”  or 
“  the  holy  ones.”  Holy — in  Greek  hagios,  in  Hebrew  qadosh 
— meant  set  apart,  consecrated.  But  as  the  person  set  apart 
must  be  fit  for  consecration  the  word  came  to  mean  fit  in  all 
moral  and  spiritual  characteristics  for  the  service  of  God, 

M 


210 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


who  is  Himself  holy  and  righteous.  The  Church,  therefore, 
is  holy  because  it  is  a  society  of  those  set  apart  for  God’s 
service,  whose  ideal  also  it  is/to  fit  themselves  for  that  service. 

Now  in  our  survey  we  found  that  one  of  the  difficult 
problems  which  the  Church  had  to  solve  was  how  to  reconcile 
this  ideal  with  reality.  It  soon  became  obvious  that  there 
was  a  danger  that  there  would  be  in  the  Church  many  who 
could  not  in  any  way  correctly  be  called  saints  St.  Paul 
addresses  the  members  of  the  Corinthian  church  as  saints. 
But  when  we  read  the  epistle  we  find  there  was  much  that 
was  not  holy  about  them.  So  it  has  always  been.  As  the 
Church  grew  and  spread  it  was  bound  to  contain  many  who 
had  not  yet  learnt  to  give  up  the  vices  of  heathenism.  In 
times  of  prosperity  the  seductions  of  the  flesh  were  strong. 
In  times  of  persecution  there  were  many  who  had  not  the 
courage  to  stand.  How  should  such  be  treated  ?  There 
were  some  who  would  have  excluded  them  from  the  church 
altogether  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  There  were  some,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  would  have  granted  them  absolution 
after  penance.  Schisms  like  Montanism  in  one  of  its  aspects, 
Novatianism — the  Puritanism  of  primitive  Christianity — and 
Donatism  all  aimed  at  making  the  Church  pure  in  reality 
as  well  as  in  name.  Calvinism  in  its  earliest  days  and  our 
English  Puritanism  had  the  same  ideal.  But  they  have  all 
failed.  Men  are  imperfect  here,  even  the  most  pure.  So 
there  can  be  no  absolutely  pure  Church  on  earth.  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  gave  us  the  true  solution  when  he  said  that  the  Church 
without  spot  or  wrinkle  was  not  the  Church  on  earth,  but 
the  Church  in  heaven,  the  glorious  Church,  the  Church 
triumphant.  The  Church  is  holy  not  in  reality  but  in  ideal. 
It  is  holy  because  it  strives  to  be  so.  But  perfect  holiness 
can  only  be  attained  in  the  final  consummation  of  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  Church  is  Catholic  ? 
We  have  already  analyzed  the  history  and  meaning  of  the 
word,  nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  of  the  sense  in  which  it 
is  used  in  the  Creed.  It  means  universal.  It  means  that 
the  Church  is  for  the  whole  world.  In  it  there  is  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free.  All  are  one 
in  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  to  be  the  religion  of  humanity.  The 


THE  CHURCH  APOSTOLIC 


211 


imperfections  of  humanity  are  to  be  transcended  by  the 
unity  in  Christ.  Now  it  is  obvious  that  in  this  case  also  we 
are  not  confessing  actual  facts.  In  no  real  sense  can  we  say 
that  it  is  extended  throughout  all  the  world,  that  it  unites 
all  mankind  in  Christ,  that  it  binds  humanity  into  one. 
Here  also  we  are  dealing  with  an  ideal,  with  an  aim  not  yet 
accomplished.  The  Church  is  catholic  because  its  high 
purpose  is  to  unite  all  mankind  in  the  bonds  of  brotherhood, 
and  until  it  has  done  so  its  work  will  be  unfinished. 

What  do  we  mean  by  saying  that  the  Church  is  Apostolic  ? 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  we  are  told  that  the  Church 
was  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets, 
and  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  the  disciples  continued 
steadfastly  in  the  Apostles’  doctrine  and  fellowship.  Here 
we  have  the  two  characteristies  that  are  implied  in  the 
epithet.  The  Church  is  the  same  Church  which  was  founded 
by  the  Apostles,  and  it  possesses  the  teaching  which  the 
Apostles  gave.  But  does  it  really  do  so  ?  And  which  is 
the  body  that  does  ?  We  are  aware  of  the  existence  of  a 
large  number  of  contending  Christian  societies.  They  differ 
from  one  another,  some  more,  some  less,  in  their  teaching; 
but  the  one  thing  that  all  claim  to  do  is  to  preserve  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostles.  The  Roman  Church  undoubtedly 
claims  to  be  the  Apostolic  Church.  It  announces  that  its 
teaching  is  infallible  and  that  it  truly  represents  the  Apo¬ 
stolic  tradition.  Exactly  the  same  claim  is  made  by  the 
Orthodox  Eastern  Church,  and  on  certain  points  it  differs 
profoundly  from  the  Roman  Church.  But  if  we  turn  to  the 
churches  which  call  themselves  Protestant  they  are  on  one 
side  assured  that  the  Roman  Church  and  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church  are  both  corrupt,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they 
themselves  preach  the  pure  word  of  God :  and  when  we  come 
to  examine  them  we  find  that  they  differ  much  one  from 
another.  Moreover,  when  we  study  the  history  of  doctrine 
we  discover  that  no  claim  to  infallibility  or  even  consistency 
can  be  maintained.  The  teaching  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
as  of  other  churches,  has  differed  much  from  time  to  time. 
History  shews  that  there  has  been  not  merely  development 
but  alteration.  We  should  all  be  quite  convinced  of  any 
other  church  but  our  own  that  it  cannot  maintain  any  claim 


212 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


to  be  always  right,  and  to  have  preserved  truly  the  Apostolic 
tradition.  That  being  the  case,  and  as  we  claim  to  be  more 
or  less  educated  and  intelligent,  and  I  hope  fair  minded,  we 
must  be  conscious,  whatever  devotion  we  may  feel  towards 
the  religious  community  to  which  we  belong,  and  however 
much  its  teaching  may  correspond  to  our  needs,  that  it 
would  be  foolish  to  claim  for  ourselves  an  infallibility  or 
doctrinal  correctness  which  it  is  obvious  that  other  churches 
do  not  possess.  Moreover,  on  many  points  we  are  not  quite 
certain  what  our  Church  does  teach.  In  fact,  we  probably 
think  that  some  of  its  merit  consists  in  the  fact  that  on  many 
points  it  preserves  an  open  mind.  These  things  being  so, 
we  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  claim  of  all  Christian 
bodies  to  be  Apostolic  suggests  at  least  that  no  one  of  them 
is  so  completely.  Here,  again,  we  are  confusing  an  ideal 
with  the  actual  fact.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  a  body  that 
exists  for  the  sake  of  handing  on  and  teaching,  of  expanding 
and  explaining  that  revelation  of  Christ  given  to  the  world 
by  His  Apostles.  It  is  always  aiming  at  understanding  and 
explaining  its  message  more  perfectly;  but  it  cannot  here 
attain  its  ideal  completely.  When  it  makes  the  greatest 
pretensions  to  do  so,  it  often  fails  most  conspicuously.  The 
note  of  being  Apostolic  is  an  ideal  as  much  as  that  of  Holi¬ 
ness  and  Catholicity. 

II 

We  may  now  discuss  the  Unity  of  the  Church.  In  what 
sense  do  we  say  that  the  Christian  Church  is  One  ? 

The  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  is  clear.  Christian 
unity  is  taught  as  of  paramount  importance.  It  is  not  only  a 
moral  duty  but  a  religious  truth.  “  For  as  the  body  is  one, 
and  hath  many  members,  and  all  the  members  of  that  one 
body,  being  many,  are  one  body:  so  also  is  Christ.”  “  There 
is  one  body,  and  one  Spirit  .  .  .  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one 
baptism.  .  .  This  unity  means  brotherhood  and  har¬ 
mony  in  life,  it  means  a  mystical  union  with  Christ  in  reli¬ 
gious  idea.  It  is  only  in  Christian  unity  that  the  full 
meaning  of  Christianity  can  be  attained. 

How  can  we  reconcile  our  confession  of  Christian  unity 
with  facts  ? 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH 


213 


We  have  seen  how,  for  a  thousand  years,  there  was  one 
large  Christian  body  which  was  called  and  might  reasonably 
claim  to  be  the  Catholic  Church.  It  embraced  within  its 
unity  a  vast  majority  of  Christians,  and  it  was  the  normal 
belief  that  without  its  fold  there  was  no  salvation.  There 
seemed  much  to  justify  such  a  contention:  but  even  then 
considerable  and  serious  difficulties  confront  us.  When  we 
study  the  history  of  the  Councils  of  Ephesus  and  Chalcedon 
we  can  hardly  consider  that  the  defeated  minority  were 
treated  with  any  measure  of  justice  or  fairness.  They  were 
driven  out  of  the  Church  by  a  violent  and  fanatical  majority. 
There  was  a  schism,  but  the  guilt  of  the  schism  cannot  be 
confined  to  one  side.  The  balance  of  doctrinal  truth  and 
error  between  Nestorius  and  Cyril,  if  our  standard  is  to  be 
the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  is  hard  to  strike.  Any  theory 
which  says  that  those  who  accepted  Ephesus  are  within  the 
Church,  the  home  of  salvation,  and  that  those  who  were 
driven  out  are  without  the  Church,  and  are  incapable  of 
being  saved,  is  unthinkable.  Nor  whatever  were  the  faults 
of  Montanists  like  Tertullian,of  Novatianists,  or  of  Donatists, 
can  we  be  content  with  the  judgement  of  the  majority  of 
Christians  at  that  time  that  they  were  outside  the  limits  of 
salvation?  As  Augustine  once  said:  “It  is  the  Christian 
religion  which  is  necessary  for  salvation,”  and  they  might 
hold  that  as  well  as  the  Catholics.  Even  in  the  days  of  the 
undivided  Church  a  theory  which  made  the  one  Catholic 
Church  the  exclusive  sphere  of  salvation  was  really  unten¬ 
able. 

Still  more  was  that  the  case  after  the  division  of  East  and 
West.  We  have  already  discussed  that  disaster  and  have 
seen  that  so  far  as  regards  the  causes  and  motives  of  the 
schism,  it  is  certainly  not  possible  to  say  that  either  side 
was  entirely  responsible  or  that  the  blame  is  not  mutual. 
Here  are  two  great  divisions  of  the  Christian  world.  They 
both  represent  the  inherited  teaching  of  Catholic  Christi¬ 
anity.  For  either  of  them  to  claim  that  it  represents  the  one 
true  Church  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  must,  to  an  outside 
observer,  appear  ridiculous.  Any  theory,  therefore,  which 
says  that  there  is  one  body  which  is  the  Catholic  Church  and 
no  other  is  really  untenable.  It  is  not  that  one  body  is  the 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


214 

Catholic  Church,  and  the  other  is  not,  but  that  the  Catholic 
Church  is  divided.  And  this  has  been  emphasized  by  the 
events  of  the  Reformation. 

Now  at  the  present  day  we  still  find  a  tendency  on  the 
part  of  certain  societies  to  make  the  claim  to  be  the  one  true 
Church.  I  do  ndt  think  that  that  solution  of  the  problem 
of  Christian  unity  has  any  merit  but  that  of  simplicity. 
If,  for  example,  that  claim  is  made  by  the  Church  of  Rome, 
we  can  only  reply  that  whatever  respect  we  may  feel  for  the 
traditions  of  holiness  of  life  preserved  by  the  members  of 
that  body  or  for  her  far-extending  and  devoted  missionary 
enterprise,  we  cannot  concede  to  them  any  monopoly  of 
Christian  purity  or  truth.  Their  theory  of  the  Church  seems 
to  us  historically  and  doctrinally  untenable.  We  must  apply 
in  our  judgement  of  Christian  bodies  the  words  of  our  Lord : 
44  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.”  We  do  not,  if  we 
judge  them  by  this  standard,  doubt  their  claims  to  be  like 
other  bodies  a  partial  representative  of  the  true  Church ;  but 
we  can  allow  them  no  exclusive  rights.  We  admire,  as  we 
have  said,  their  missionary  zeal,  but  we  find  that  there  are 
many  other  religious  bodies  with  equal  zeal  and  often 
greater  success  sharing  their  labours.  And  in  other  direc¬ 
tions  we  find  that  the  fruits  of  their  religious  work  are  often 
far  to  seek.  If  we  want  guidance  on  the  intellectual  pro¬ 
blems  of  the  day  we  find  them  singularly  defective.  How 
seldom  do  they  help  us  in  our  studies  of  Scripture,  on 
Christian  apologetics,  on  the  problems  of  philosophy ! 
Often  they  appear  to  us  to  have  preserved  only  a  sterile 
and  lifeless  tradition.  How  little  help  they  give  us  in  our 
study  of  social  subjects  !  How  lamentably  they  have  failed, 
especially  in  those  countries  where  they  have  almost  a 
monopoly  of  religious  teaching,  in  reconciling  to  the  Church 
of  the  day  modern  political  life  !  Any  one  church  at  the 
resent  time  which  claims  to  be  the  only  true  Church  con¬ 
demns  itself  by  its  claim. 

Nor  is  the  problem  simplified  by  the  distinction  which 
is  made  between  the  body  and  soul  of  the  Church.  That  is 
one  of  those  phrases  which  are  invented  to  harmonize  an 
impossible  position  with  real  facts.  This  teaching  is 
expressed  as  follows:  “Those  who  without  fault  of  their 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH 


215 

own  are  not  members  of  the  body  of  the  Church  may, 
nevertheless,  belong  to  its  soul,  provided  they  seek  to  know 
the  truth,  preserve  faith  and  charity,  and  are  contrite  for 
the  sins  they  have  committed.”1  But  it  may  be  said  at 
once  that  it  is  just  because  many  people  desire  to  know  the 
truth  that  they  are  separated  from  the  body  in  this  sense. 
Further,  we  may  point  out  that  the  condition  of  being  a 
member  of  the  body  is  laid  down  by  St.  Paul  as  Baptism, 
and  that  so  much  is  this  the  case  that  St.  Augustine  speaks 
of  heretics  being  joined  in  bodily  union  with  the  Church 
by  Baptism.  A  phrase  like  this  is  not  sufficient  to  recon¬ 
cile  an  exclusive  theory  with  the  visible  fact  of  Christianity. 

Then  there  is  what  is  called  the  Branch  theory.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  this  the  one  Church  is  divided  into  three  branches 
— the  Roman,  the  Eastern,  and  the  Anglican — which  are  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  all  other  bodies  by  alone  preserving  Apo¬ 
stolic  Church  orders.  To  belong  to  one  of  these  bodies  is  to 
belong  to  the  Church.  All  other  Christians  are  outside  the 
true  Church.  I  do  not  think  that  this  theory  either  will 
satisfy  us.  It  does  not  in  any  way  explain  to  us  the  unity 
of  the  Church.  Three  branches  are  not  one  any  more  than 
all  the  separate  Protestant  sects,  and  no  verbal  juggling 
can  make  them  so .  Then  this  theory  takes  one  characteristic 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that  not  the  most  important,  and 
makes  it  the  sole  criterion .  We  may  believe  that  an  Apostolic 
ministry  is  an  important  part  of  Church  life,  but  we  have 
no  ground  in  Scripture  for  making  it  the  one  thing  that 
matters.  Moreover,  we  cannot  really  justify  the  application 
of  the  principle.  It  is  true  that  the  Papacy  has  preserved 
Apostolic  orders,  but  it  has  imposed  over  them  a  doctrine  of 
the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  which  deprives  the  traditional 
system  of  Church  government  of  any  real  value.  Are  we 
to  accept  the  Romanists  as  having  a  really  Catholic  ministry 
and  then  exclude,  shall  we  say,  the  Presbyterians,  who  have 
preserved  a  Church  order  which  may  be  somewhat  deficient, 
but  does  not  depart  from  the  Catholic  ideal  to  a  greater 
extent  than  does  the  dogmatic  Papacy  ? 

And  then,  lastly,  there  is  an  argument  which  will,  I  think, 

1  Rev.  Herbert  Thurston,  S.J.,  in  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and 
Ethics,  vol.  iii.,  p.  629. 


2l6 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


appeal  to  us  more  strongly.  When  we  Anglicans  are  faced 
by  the  exclusive  claims  of  Rome,  we  feel  how  arrogant 
they  are,  and  that  clearly  nothing  in  the  realities  of  the 
Christian  world  can  justify  them.  “  By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them.”  We  feel  that  the  fruits  of  our  Church  life 
and  what  we  have  accomplished  in  theological  learning,  in 
missionary  enterprise,  in  living  Church  life,  form  the  grounds 
of  a  just  claim.  We  are  conscious  that  we  exhibit  all  the 
marks  of  a  living  Church.  But  if  we  are  prepared  to  look 
at  the  Christian  world  as  it  is,  it  must  be  obvious  to  any 
impartial  observer  that  the  non-episcopal  bodies  can  make 
exactly  the  same  claims  against  us.  We  have  no  monopoly 
of  theological  learning,  of  biblical  exegesis,  of  missionary 
enterprise,  or  living  religious. life,  or  wise  thoughts  on  the 
problems  of  the  day.  In  fact,  in  some  directions  we  should 
probably  be  judged  to  be  definitely  inferior.  We  must  be 
careful  that  we  do  not  make  just  the  same  arrogant  claims 
that  we  condemn  in  others.  I  hardly  think  that  the  Branch 
theory  is  satisfactory. 

And  then  there  is  what  I  think  I  may  call  the  Protestant 
view.  It  is  difficult  to  fix  it  down,  as  it  is  often  presented  in 
a  somewhat  nebulous  manner.  I  think  that  it  starts  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  Invisible  Church.  The  one  Catholic 
Church  of  which  we  speak  is  formed  by  the  true  believers 
throughout  the  world,  who  are  joined  together  in  a  unity  of 
spirit.  The  Church  as  realized  on  earth  consists  of  a  number 
of  separate  societies,  called  churches,  which  may  or  may 
not  be  associated  with  one  another.  These,  by  a  triumph 
of  bad  exegesis,  are  identified  with  the  churches  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  are  supposed  to  be  united  spiritually  with 
one  another.  And  it  is  suggested  that  this  makes  the  sort 
of  Christian  unity  that  we  should  work  for.  I  am  afraid 
that  this  ideal  seems  to  me  as  unsatisfactory  as  anything 
we  have  considered.  It  is  clear  to  me  that  the  unity 
spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament  is  a  visible,  external 
unity.  How  can  you  speak  of  Christianity  bringing  people 
together  if  it  means  organizing  them  in  separate  pens  ? 
Where  is  the  brotherhood  implied  in  that  ?  What  real 
amity  can  there  be  among  the  members  of  this  one  Church 
if,  as  theologians  tell  us,  they  are  only  imperfectly  known 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH 


217 

to  one  another  in  this  life  ?  Moreover,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  the  use  of  the  word  “  churches  ”  in  this  sense 
is  not  in  accordance  with  New  Testament  usage.  The 
churches  in  it  are  the  groups  of  different  societies  dis¬ 
tributed  geographically,  not  separated  societies  organized  on 
the  basis  of  different  conceptions  of  Christianity.  This  theory 
is,  in  fact,  less  in  harmony  with  Scripture  than  any  of  the 
others.  They,  at  least,  preserve  the  ideal  of  one  Church. 
But  in  the  federation  theory,  or  that  of  an  Invisible  Church, 
even  the  ideal  is  absent.  I  cannot  but  think  that  the 
persistent  influence  of  a  presentment  of  Christianity  which 
has  entirely  left  out  all  conception  of  the  one  Visible  Church 
has  had  much  to  do  with  the  continued  and  disastrous 
prevalence  of  Christian  disunion.  If  on  the  one  side  we  have 
a  doctrine  of  Christian  unity  which  obliterates  freedom,  and 
on  the  other  a  doctrine  of  Christian  freedom  which  dis¬ 
regards  unity,  it  is  natural  enough  that  just  that  condition 
of  things  should  exist  which  prevails  at  the  present  day 
— such  as  is  now  beginning  to  prick  our  conscience. 

Our  conclusion,  then,  is  that  none  of  these  theories  or 
palliatives  is  in  any  way  sound;  our  explanation  of  the 
term  44  One,”  as  applied  to  the  Church,  must  be  similar  to 
that  which  we  gave  to  the  terms  44  Holy,”  44  Catholic,”  and 
44  Apostolic.”  It,  like  them,  presents  an  ideal.  When  we 
say  that  the  Church  is  44  one,”  we  mean  that  Christ  intended 
it  to  be  44  one,”  as  He  intended  it  to  be  44  holy  ”;  that  the 
Apostles  founded  it  as  44  one  ”;  that  it  must  be  our  con¬ 
tinuous  aim  to  make  it  44  one.”  We  must  always  have  that 
ideal  before  us.  But  human  sin  has  caused  divisions,  just 
as  it  has  soiled  that  Church  which  should  be  pure  and  without 
spot.  We  have  to  endure  imperfection  here.  Every  step 
towards  Christian  unity  makes  Christianity  fulfil  its  mission 
more  perfectly.  All  schism  and  strife  and  dissension  mean 
so  much  more  failure.  Perhaps  the  full  and  perfect  unity 
may  not  be  attained  in  this  present  consummation,  but 
for  that  end  we  must  all  work. 

When,  therefore,  we  confess  in  the  creeds  our  belief  in 
a  Church,  One,  Holy,  Catholic,  Apostolic,  we  mean  that 
Christ  founded  a  society  which  was  designed  to  be  one, 
world-embracing,  holy  in  life,  preserving  and  teaching  the 


2l8 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


faith  which  He  delivered  to  the  Apostles.  That  ideal  all 
Christians  should  have  before  them.  Each  in  his  own 
sphere  should  aim  at  realizing  it.  But  these  lofty  charac¬ 
teristics  cannot  be  fulfilled  perfectly  in  the  Church  militant 
on  earth. 

I  will  conclude  what  I  have  to  say  on  this  point  with  a 
quotation  from  a  letter  of  the  late  Dr.  Liddon.  His  theory 
of  the  Church  was  different  from  that  which  I  hold,  but  he 
states  the  same  argument  that  we  have  followed  with 
singular  lucidity  and  eloquence. 

“  The  answer  to  Pere  Hyacinthe’s  argument,”  he  writes, 
“  in  my  mind,  is  as  follows: 

“  i.  It  is  true  that  our  Lord  meant  His  Body  to  be  visibly 
one.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  one  Body  as  well  as  of  one  Spirit. 

“  2.  He  also  meant  it  to  be  perfectly  holy,  without  spot 
or  blemish,  and  catholic — that  is,  literally  the  religion  of  the 
whole  human  race.  These  last  two  points  I  need  not  prove 
to  you;  they  are  admitted. 

“3.  Can  any  one  Christian  body — the  Church  of  Rome 
any  more  than  the  Church  of  England  or  the  Orthodox 
Eastern  Church — pretend  to  full  possession  of  the  ‘  note  * 
of  sanctity  ?  There  are  saints  in  her,  no  doubt.  But  the 
net  contains  more  bad  fish  than  good;  the  sanctity  is  attri¬ 
buted  to  an  abstraction,  not  to  the  concrete  mass  of  men 
and  women  who  receive  the  Sacraments  of  the  Roman 
Church.  In  like  manner:  Is  the  Church  of  Rome  as  yet 
catholic,  or  anything  like  it,  in  the  sense  of  the  promises  ? 
Why — all  Christians  taken  together  do  not  form  a  third 
of  the  human  race;  and  unbelievers  are  telling  us  every  day 
that  the  promised  conquest  of  the  world  is  an  utter  failure. 
And  on  this  point,  how  do  we  reply  to  them,  whether  at 
Rome  or  in  Oxford  ?  We  say  that  the  ideal  range  and  the 
ultimate  fulfilment  of  these  promises  is  one  thing;  the 
historical  travail  of  the  Church  another.  Centuries  are 
nothing  to  God.  The  Church  is  catholic  enough  to  make 
us  sure  that  she  will  one  day  be  literally  more  so ;  holy  enough 
to  satisfy  us  that  Christ  is  in  the  midst  of  her.  These 
‘  notes  ’  will  be  completed  one  day,  and,  meanwhile,  we  wait 
in  patience. 

“4.  Why  is  it  not  to  be  thus  with  the  ‘  note  of  unity  ’  ? 


THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


219 


You  say  that  unity  is  a  visible,  matter-of-fact  thing,  which 
we  do  or  do  not  see.  Yes,  but  the  promise:  ‘All  nations 
shall  fall  down  before  him;  all  people  shall  do  him  service,’ 
is  a  matter-of-fact  promise  which  has  or  has  not  been  kept. 
You  say,  that  unity  was  to  be  an  evidence  of  Christianity 
patent  to  the  eyes  of  heathens.  Yes,  but  a  holy  charity 
was  also  to  be  such  an  evidence :  ‘  By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  that  ye  have  charity  one 
towards  another.’  In  point  of  fact,  the  note  of  Unity,  like 
the  other  notes  of  Sanctity  and  world-embracing  Univer¬ 
sality,  has  been  only  partially  realized  in  history.  As  yet, 
between  the  promise  and  its  fulfilment,  there  is  a  gap.”1 

Ill 

What,  then,  is  the  Church,  and  of  whom  does  it  consist  ? 
The  right  answer  is  that  given  in  the  Bidding  Prayer  which 
we  have  just  used.  “  Christ’s  Holy  Catholic  Church — that 
is,  the  whole  congregation  of  Christian  people  dispersed 
throughout  the  whole  world.”  This  means  that  the  Christian 
Church  consists  of  all  those  who  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
and  are  baptized.  The  condition  of  admission  into  the 
Church  in  the  New  Testament  is  faith  and  Baptism.  “  By 
one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether  we  be 
Jews  or  Gentiles,  whether  we  be  bond  or  free;  and  we  have 
been  all  made  to  drink  into  one  Spirit.”  The  one  condition 
of  salvation  is  belief  in  Christ:  “  Whosoever  shall  call  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved.”  There  is  no  further 
limitation  than  this.  The  Church  consists  of  all  baptized 
Christians. 

And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  undoubted  decision  of 
the  Church  is  that  Baptism  is  valid  if  rightly  performed,  in 
accordance  with  the  commands  of  our  Lord  and  the  customs 
of  the  Church  which  have  prevailed  from  the  beginning, 
whoever  may  have  performed  the  ceremony,  whether  he  be 
priest  or  layman.  It  is  important,  moreover,  to  remember 
that  no  one  is  baptized  as  a  member  of  any  particular 
church.  He  is  baptized  into  Christ — that  is,  as  a  member  of 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Henry  Parry  Liddon,  by  John  Octavius 
Johnston,  p.  126. 


220  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Christ’s  Holy  Catholic  Church.  He  is  not  baptized  into  the 
Church  of  England,  or  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  the  Wesleyan 
society,  and  therefore  any  repetition  of  a  baptism  which  has 
been  rightly  performed  is  a  violation  of  the  Catholic  rule 
which  forbids  the  repetition  of  this  Sacrament.  Moreover, 
it  is  a  grave  violation  of  the  comity  which  should  exist  even 
in  a  disunited  Church. 

But  if  we  recognize  that  all  baptized  Christians  who 
believe  in  Christ  are  members  of  the  Church,  we  do  not  by 
that  imply  that  it  makes  no  matter  to  what  religious  society 
they  belong  or  whether  they  belong  to  any.  Many  may  be 
imperfect  in  their  beliefs,  irregular  in  their  practices,  undis¬ 
ciplined  in  their  lives.  Many  of  them,  either  through  some 
fault  of  their  own  or  through  want  of  opportunity,  may  be 
without  the  full  privileges  of  Church  membership.  It  is 
well  for  us  to  recognize  at  once  the  difference  between  ex¬ 
cluding  such  persons  from  the  Church  and  being  indifferent 
to  the  character  of  corporate  Christianity.  The  mistake, 
as  I  hold,  that  Christian  theology  has  so  often  made  in  the 
past  has  been  in  attempting  to  limit  the  field  of  God’s  mercy, 
to  bind  His  actions  by  rules  of  human  device  and  hard 
rigidity,  to  impose  as  a  necessity  of  salvation  an  ideal. 
That  mistake  has  no  doubt  often  arisen  from  jealousy 
for  the  ideal.  Men  have  been  so  eager  for  the  unity,  the 
purity,  the  fulness  of  corporate  life  that  they  have  con¬ 
demned  without  mercy  those  who  have  seemed  to  them 
to  injure  it  so  fatally  by  disunion.  Theological  liberality 
must  not  mean  indifference.  We  must  recognize  that  it  is 
only  as  members  of  one  united  Catholic  Church  that  we 
Christians  can  obtain  our  full  privileges;  that  what  is 
essential  to  be  a  Christian  is  far  less  than  the  full  Christian 
life,  and  that  because  we  all  belong  to  separated,  imperfect, 
maimed  bodies,  our  own  Christianity  and  that  of  the  world 
is  so  imperfect. 

We  must  recognize,  then,  that  all  baptized  Christians  are 
members  of  Christ’s  Holy  Catholic  Church,  but  also  that  it 
is  the  imperative  duty  of  every  Christian  to  work  to  bring 
them  all  together  in  the  fold  of  one  living  corporate  body 
which  preserves  in  the  fulness  of  Christian  freedom  the  com¬ 
plete  Christian  tradition. 


SCHISM 


221 


I  must  now  turn  to  another  question  which  arises  out  of 
the  position  we  have  so  far  arrived  at.  What  do  we  mean 
by  schism  ?  If  all  baptized  persons  are  members  of  the 
Church,  who  are  schismatics  ?  The  ordinary  answer  that 
is  given  to  this  question  is  that  a  schismatic  is  a  person  who 
does  not  belong  to  a  Christian  body  to  which  I  belong,  and 
who  thus  maybe  held  to  have  separated  from  the  true  Church. 
The  Romanists  look  upon  us  as  schismatics.  It  has  been 
their  custom  so  to  describe  the  Orthodox  Church  of  the  East. 
The  Orthodox  Church  naturally  retaliates  when  Rome 
sends  missions  to  convert  her  people.  We  consider  those 
who  leave  us  for  the  Church  of  Rome  to  be  schismatics,  and 
it  has  generally  been  our  custom  to  look  upon  all  Noncon¬ 
formist  bodies  as  schismatics,  while  Protestants  sometimes 
refuse  to  give  the  title  of  Christians  to  the  Roman  Church, 
and  certainly  look  upon  it  as  a  separated  body  whose 
members  have  to  be  converted.  And  if  people  are  indifferent 
to  Christian  unity  it  is  rather  difficult  to  give  an  intelligent 
meaning  to  the  word  “  schism  ”  at  all. 

Now  all  these  points  of  view  are  subjective.  Each 
person  interprets  the  word  in  relation  to  himself  and  in 
the  assumption  that  he  is  right  and  all  others  are  wrong. 
We  want  something  more  objective.  I  would  suggest  this 
to  you.  All  disunion  among  Christians  is  wrong.  Schism 
means  a  division  in  the  body.  When,  therefore,  such  a 
division  has  occurred  both  sides  are  schismatics.  But  it 
may  not  be  that  the  sin  of  schism  belongs  equally  to  both 
sides.  The  sin  of  schism  lies  with  those  who  are  the  cause  of 
disunion,  those  who  through  some  fault  of  their  own  create 
disunion  or  prevent  union.  In  some  cases  schismatics  will 
be  simply  those  who  break  away  from  the  body  of  the  Church 
to  which  they  belong.  But  the  causes  of  this  may  be  various. 
It  may  come  through  undue  self-assertion,  through  erroneous 
teaching,  through  a  failure  to  correct  their  own  mistakes  by 
the  teaching  of  the  society  to  which  they  belong.  Such 
people  are  clearly  schismatics  in  temper  as  well  as  in  name. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  sin  may  lie  with  those  who  cause 
them  to  break  away.  It  may  be  the  spiritual  deadness  of 
the  parent  body,  or  the  harsh  treatment  of  their  members, 
or  some  erroneous  teaching  obstinately  persisted  in,  or 


222 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


irregular  ecclesiastical  action.  It  may  be  difficult  to  find 
any  cause  which  can  really  justify  schism.  But  what  other 
course  is  open  to  those  who  have  separated  if  they  have  been 
unjustly  excommunicated  by  the  parent  body?  Probably 
in  no  case  has  the  sin  been  entirely  on  one  side ;  but  often  on 
an  impartial  judgement  of  the  issue  we  must  hold  that  one 
party  in  the  schism  has  been  predominantly  guilty. 

Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  principal  schisms  of  the  Church. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  that  between  East  and  West. 
This  was  clearly  a  division  in  the  body.  We  cannot  say 
that  one  side  broke  off  from  the  other.  Both  alike  were 
schismatics.  And  if  we  hold  that  the  real  cause  was  the 
unjustifiable  claims  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  jurisdiction 
over  the  East,  there  no  doubt  lies  the  real  guilt  of  schism. 
But  in  the  East  too  there  was  the  schismatic  temper.  It  was 
this  too,  as  well  as  the  claims  of  Rome,  that  caused  the  breach. 
Had  the  East  asserted  its  independence  (which  could  not 
really  have  been  interfered  with)  and  yet  preserved  an  atti¬ 
tude  of  Christian  charity,  the  actual  division  of  East  and 
West  would  have  been  difficult. 

We  turn  to  the  Reformation.  Great  divisions  then  took 
place  in  the  Western  Church.  Fissures  were  made  in 
Christian  unity.  National  Churches  broke  off.  Religious 
sects  multiplied.  Where  was  the  blame  ?  Who  were  the 
schismatics  ?  Clearly  those  who  caused  division.  And  the 
ultimate  cause  of  all  division  was  the  unspiritual  character 
and  the  immorality  of  the  Papal  Court.  For  that  reason 
the  Church  was  unable  to  deal  with  this  crisis  as  it  had  dealt 
with  other  crises  in  the  past.  No  wise  historian  can  condemn 
in  any  complete  fashion  the  Medieval  Papacy,  whatever 
errors  he  may  think  it  exhibited.  There  was  indeed  false 
teaching.  This  had  largely  sprung  up  in  the  response  of 
the  Church  to  the  needs  of  the  time.  Now  it  had  played 
its  part.  A  revision  of  Christian  thought  was  demanded. 
There  was  a  just  cry  for  reform.  A  more  enlightened  age 
knew  that  Christian  teaching  should  be  purged  of  what  was 
untrue.  There  were  all  the  elements  which,  had  there  been 
free  play,  might  have  accomplished  this;  but  they  were 
suppressed  by  an  unspiritual  autocracy.  Therefore  it  was 
that,  whatever  elements  of  self-assertion,  of  half-truth,  of 


SCHISM 


223 

unspiritual  motives  there  may  have  been  on  the  other  side, 
the  ultimate  cause  of  schism  lay  in  the  unspiritual  and  rigid 
tradition  of  the  Roman  Curia. 

Or  take,  thirdly,  the  Wesleyan  schism  in  England.  Here 
there  were  two  elements.  On  the  one  side  a  Church  which, 
however  much  it  may  have  possessed  traditions  of  personal 
piety,  had  lost  much  of  its  spiritual  life.  On  the  other  side 
a  religious  movement  full  of  spiritual  life,  with  some  of  the 
self-assertion  and  want  of  discipline  which  often  accompanies 
a  spiritual  revival.  A  church  which  was  sufficiently 
spiritual  might  have  absorbed  the  new  movement :  a  church 
which  was  partly  dead  and  hampered  by  secular  traditions 
could  not.  There  is  no  need  to  be  too  anxious  to  condemn 
ourselves — a  fault  to  which  perhaps  we  are  somewhat  prone, 
but  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  Wesleyans  who  separated 
themselves  were  not  the  only  schismatics.  There  was  a 
breach  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  in  England,  a  schism  was 
enacted,  and  the  guilt  of  schism  does  not  lie  only  on  one  side. 

vSchism,  then,  is  a  division  in  the  body.  When  there  is 
such  a  division  both  sides  are  schismatics,  and  the  sin  of 
schism  lies  with  those  who  are  morally  responsible  for  having 
caused  the  division. 

What  are  we  to  say  of  the  position  at  the  present  day  ? 
Here  we  are  a  divided  Christianity;  many  different  bodies 
each  claiming  to  be  the  true  Church  or  at  any  rate  to  be  a 
true  representative  of  Christianity.  What  is  the  position 
of  an  ordinary  Christian  ?  The  Roman  Church,  with  a  self- 
sufficiency  for  which  there  is  no  justification,  will  call  all 
schismatics  who  do  not  belong  to  its  communion.  Some 
Anglicans  with  equal  self-sufficiency  and  equal  want  of 
justification  will  call  all  schismatics  who  do  not  belong  to  an 
episcopal  Church.  Some  members  of  Protestant  bodies 
are  equally  satisfied  with  their  own  position  and  condemn  all 
who  deviate  even  a  hair’s  breadth  from  their  orthodoxy. 
I  do  not  think  that  we  can  feel  that  such  attitudes  have  any 
justification.  The  Church  which  should  be  one  is  divided, 
and  of  none  of  the  separated  bodies  can  it  be  said  that  it 
represents  perfectly  the  full  Apostolic  tradition.  We  know 
that  that  is  the  case  of  every  other  body  but  our  own :  it  is 
obvious  that  it  must  be  true  also  of  ourselves.  Neither  we  nor 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


224 

anyone  else  have  any  right  to  claim  to  be  infallible.  Schism 
— that  is,  the  creation  of  disunion — is  sinful;  but  they  who 
are  born  (as  all  Christians  are)  in  a  body  separated  from  other 
branches  of  Christianity  are  not  themselves  guilty  of  any 
schism.  It  is  the  duty  of  such  people  to  remain  in  the  body 
to  which  they  belong  and  to  do  all  they  can  to  bring  it  closer 
to  other  bodies  of  Christians.  In  the  present  condition  of 
religion  in  the  world  those  are  guilty  of  schism  who  do  any¬ 
thing  morally  wrong  which  keeps  Christians  apart  and 
prevents  Christian  union.  It  is  the  bounden  duty  of  all 
Christians  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  unite  the  separated 
members  of  Christ’s  flock,  and  to  build  up  anew  the  Body  of 
Christ. 

There  is  one  further  question  that  arises.  In  what  sense 
may  we  legitimately  use  the  term  “  church  ”  ?  It  is  main¬ 
tained  with  great  earnestness  by  the  representatives  of  all 
separated  bodies  that  they  are  entitled  to  the  name  of  Church, 
and  they  demand  with  some  insistence  that  that  name 
should  be  conceded  to  them.  Now  in  what  sense,  following 
biblical  precedent,  may  we  use  the  word  “  church  ”  ?  The 
Church  means  in  the  first  place  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
people  dispersed  throughout  the  whole  world.  That  is  the 
one  right  and  true  sense,  and  in  that  sense  all  baptized  and 
believing  Christians  are  members  of  it.  It  means  in  a  secon¬ 
dary  sense  the  local  society  which  represents  that  one 
Catholic  Church,  and  so  we  may  rightly  speak  of  the  Church 
of  France,  or  the  Church  of  England,  or  the  Church  of  Scot¬ 
land.  But  who  at  the  present  time  may  rightly  claim  such 
titles  may  often  be  doubtful.  For  example,  even  if  its 
historical  position  and  its  numbers  might  entitle  the  religious 
society  to  which  we  belong  to  call  itself  the  Church  of  England 
it  would  only  be  in  the  sense  that  potentially  all  Christians 
in  this  country  are  members  of  it.  And  the  same  may  be 
true  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.  Then,  thirdly,  it  is  used  of  a 
body  of  Christians  who  unite  together  for  worship.  In  that 
sense  it  may,  I  think,  be  legitimately  used  of  any  Christian 
congregation . 

But  now  there  is  another  sense  in  which  it  is  commonly 
used.  We  speak  of  the  Wesleyan  Church,  the  Congrega¬ 
tional  Church,  the  Anglican  Church,  the  Roman  Church — 


SCHISM  AND  CHURCH 


225 

not  in  the  sense  of  the  Church  which  is  in  Rome,  but  of  a 
particular  body  of  Christians  in  some  other  country.  That  is, 
we  use  the  word  “church  ”  for  a  separated  body  of  Christians 
organized  together  on  the  basis  of  a  more  or  less  imperfect 
representation  of  the  Christian  tradition  and  in  distinction 
from  other  Christians.  Now  such  a  usage  of  the  term  has  no 
justification  either  in  the  New  Testament  or  in  Christian 
tradition,  and  is  in  my  opinion  wholly  wrong;  but  it  is  wrong 
not  only  for  the  Wesleyan  and  Congregationalist,  but  also 
for  the  Anglican.  The  word  “  church  ”  is  used  in  this  sense 
as  a  synonym  for  schism.  The  only  correct  language  would 
be  the  Anglo-Catholic  schism,  the  Roman  schism,  the 
Presbyterian  schism,  the  Wesleyan  schism,  the  Congrega¬ 
tional  schism.  It  would  be  as  well,  therefore,  that  we  should 
give  up,  if  we  can,  the  use  of  the  term,  and  if  we  desire  a  mere 
colourless  word  speak  of  ourselves  as  the  Anglo-Catholic 
community  and  use  similar  language  about  the  other 
separated  bodies. 

I  venture  to  think  that  a  correct  grasp  of  the  meaning  of 
the  Church  is  fundamental  to  our  quest.  That  what  I  have 
attempted  to  sketch  corresponds  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  of  England  I  do  not  doubt.  Such  an  interpretation 
removes  all  the  harshness  from  the  traditional  language  of 
the  Church.  The  Christian  Fathers  were  right  in  thinking  of 
the  Church  as  the  home  of  salvation,  the  sphere  of  the  work 
of  the  Spirit.  They  were  right  in  thinking  that  the  Church 
should  be  a  visible  society,  with  an  organized  life  and  unity, 
and  that  it  ought  to  be  one.  They  were  wrong  in  thinking 
that  everyone  who  was  separated  from  the  visible  society 
was  therefore  in  no  sense  a  member  of  the  Church.  It  was 
this  that  led  to  what  I  cannot  but  think  to  be  erroneous 
theories  on  the  nature  of  Orders  and  Sacraments,  and  caused 
the  fatal  narrowness  of  a  church  polity  based  upon  them. 
But  we  must  not  think  that  the  theory  of  the  Church  we  have 
sketched  means  more  than  it  says.  It  does  not  mean  that 
it  makes  no  difference  to  what  Christian  body  we  belong, 
or  what  is  its  teaching  or  organization,  or  that  one  church  is 
as  good  as  another.  These  are  matters  of  real  importance. 
What  it  does  mean  is  that  no  body  of  Christians,  however 
imperfect,  may  not  be  the  home  of  salvation,  or  without  the 


226 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


gift  of  the  Spirit,  that  its  Sacraments  are  of  no  avail,  its 
ministry  invalid.  We  might  well  hold  that  it  was  with  the 
purpose  of  preventing  such  teaching  as  this  that  our  Lord 
said,  “Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my 
name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them.”  These  words  do 
not  take  away  from  anything  said  about  the  duty  of  Christian 
unity,  or  the  full  life  of  the  Christian  Church;  but  they  should 
be  sufficient  to  prevent  us  from  saying  that  any  body  of 
Christians,  however  imperfect  or  obscure,  is  without  a  share 
in  the  Christian  Church. 

I  could  sum  up,  then,  the  position  that  we  have  so  far 
attained  as  follows:  The  Christian  Church  consists  of  all 
baptized  Christians  who  believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus.  The 
words  of  our  Lord,  the  commands  and  practice  of  the 
Apostles,  tell  us  that  this  society  should  be  one — a  united, 
living  organism.  At  present,  owing  to  the  sin  and  imperfec¬ 
tion  of  mankind,  it  is  not  what  it  should  be:  it  is  divided  into 
a  number  of  bodies,  all  imperfect  in  their  life  and  teaching, 
who  have  failed  to  accomplish  their  mission.  It  is  our  duty 
to  do  all  in  our  power  to  restore  this  unity  and  create  a 
united  Church  which  will  more  fitly  represent  the  Apostolic 
ideal.  To  do  so  we  should  begin  by  being  loyal  to  the 
religious  society  to  which  we  belong.  We  should  aim  at 
making  it  fulfil  adequately  the  ideal  of  a  Christian  Church 
by  purity  of  life,  by  moral  and  spiritual  power.  It  is  our 
duty  by  wise  thought,  by  judgement  and  learning,  to  make 
its  teaching  and  order  as  truly  representative  as  possible  of 
the  Apostolic  ideal.  It  is  our  duty  to  do  all  that  in  us  lies 
so  far  as  is  consistent  with  Christian  truth  to  break  down 
the  barriers  between  ourselves  and  other  Christian  bodies. 

/  IV 

Our  next  question,  then,  will  be,  What  is  our  ideal  of 
a  Christian  church  ?  To  what  model  should  it  conform  ? 

To  answer  that  question  we  have  four  lines  of  approach. 
We  have  the  teaching  of  our  Lord,  the  rules  and  customs  of 
the  Apostles,  the  traditions  of  the  Church,  and  the  lessons  of 
religious  experience.  These  are  our  authorities  and  sources, 
and  in  making  use  of  them  we  must  remember  their  relative 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  SCHISM  227 

importance.  We  must  recognize  that  the  teaching  of  our 
Lord  is  of  greater  authority  than  the  rules  of  the  Church. 
There  may  be  many  wise  and  wholesome  ecclesiastical 
regulations,  but  to  insist  upon  them  in  a  manner  which  causes 
controversy  and  schism,  which  violates  the  very  principles 
of  brotherhood  on  which  the  Church  is  built,  without  dis¬ 
cretion,  without  proportion,  and  without  charity,  must 
always  be  wrong.  For  instance,  if  a  man  says,  “  I  will  have 
no  dealings  with  a  church  which  makes  the  recitation  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed  voluntary,”  he  is  clearly  putting  an 
ordinance  of  man  in  the  place  of  the  teaching  of  Christ; 
if  another  says:  “  I  will  not  be  a  member  of  an  Established 
Church  in  any  form,”  he  is  acting  in  just  the  same  way. 
No  doubt  both  would  say  that  the  point  on  which  they  were 
determined  to  stand  firm  was  in  their  judgement  essential. 
But  how  far  and  to  what  extent  have  we  a  right  to  put  our 
own  judgement  against  the  general  opinion  of  the  Church 
or  nation  ?  I  have  never  been  able  to  sympathize  with  the 
Passive  Resister  who  was  quite  ready  to  take  Churchmen’s 
money  for  undenominational  schools,  but  would  not  allow 
the  Church  schools  to  share.  I  have  always  felt  that  Pusey 
and  Liddon  were  wrong  when  they  threatened  to  retire  into 
lay  communion  if  anything  was  done  to  the  Athanasian 
Creed.  Our  English  High  Churchmen  have  clearly  been  too 
ready  to  imitate  Novatian,  or  the  Donatists,  or  Lucifer  of 
Cagliari.  We  may  quite  rightly  adhere  to  an  opinion  and 
do  all  that  we  can  to  make  it  prevail;  but  to  refuse  to  carry 
on  our  work  or  to  create  a  schism  because  we  dissent  from 
the  majority  on  some  subordinate  point  is  to  exercise  private 
judgement  illegitimately.  It  is  this  spirit  which  has  always 
caused  disunion.  We  want  to  cultivate  a  wise  and  sober 
judgement,  a  balanced  and  tolerant  temper. 

In  trying,  then,  to  form  our  ideal  of  what  the  Church 
should  be,  we  must  put  in  the  forefront  the  Gospel  precepts. 
We  must  remember  always  that  the  Church  exists  to  promote 
brotherhood  and  discipleship.  We  must  remember  that  a 
fundamental  Christian  principle  is  unity,  and  we  must  be 
careful  lest  we  allow  our  devotion  to  ecclesiastical  customs 
to  overpower  our  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  higher 
things.  We  must  recognize  that  any  definite  commands  of 


228  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 

our  Lord,  and  any  clear  Apostolic  ordinances,  have  an 
authority  which  does  not  attach  to  the  rules  of  the  later 
Church.  We  must  recognize  the  value  of  ecclesiastical  rules 
and  traditions,  but  as  the  customs  and  ordinances  of  the 
Church  have  varied  from  century  to  century  we  cannot  select 
the  rules  of  any  one  period  and  claim  that  they  are  of 
paramount  obligation.  The  lessons  of  Church  history,  the 
teaching  of  Christian  experience,  must  be  our  guide,  and  we 
shall  need  always  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  counsel. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  we  studied  the  principles 
on  which  the  first  Christian  community,  that  depicted  for 
us  in  the  early  chapters  of  the  Acts,  was  built  up,  we  noticed 
that  it  exhibited  certain  principles:  there  was  a  unity  of 
teaching,  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostles;  a  unity  of  life  and 
organization,  represented  by  the  spirit  of  brotherhood, 
exaggerated  perhaps  into  a  primitive  communism,  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  authority  of  the  Apostles  on  the  other; 
there  was  a  unity  of  Sacrament  and  prayers,  Baptism  and  the 
Breaking  of  Bread.  These  three  principles  have  marked 
the  lines  of  development  of  the  Church  since  that  day,  and 
it  is  of  these  three  aspects  of  the  question  that  I  propose  to 
treat. 

(1)  Unity  of  doctrine. 

(2)  Unity  of  organization. 

(3)  Unity  of  Sacraments. 

The  first  of  these  I  propose  to  discuss  now,  the  second  and 
third  will  occupy  us  in  the  next  lecture. 

V 

What  should  be  the  doctrinal  basis  of  Christian  Unity  ? 
The  answer  that  I  would  give  is  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the 
Christian  Creed. 

The  question  of  the  acceptance  and  the  authority  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  is  one  which  need  not,  I  think,  detain  us  long, 
but  there  are  two  or  three  points  which  demand  discussion. 

The  first  point  is  that  our  canon  of  Scripture  must  be 
that  which  has  been  universally  accepted  by  the  Christian 
Church.  That  means  that  our  Old  Testament  canon  must 
be  that  of  the  Jewish  Church,  accepted  by  the  Christian 


THE  CANON  OF  SCRIPTURE 


229 


Church,  and  our  New  Testament  canon  that  as  defined  by 
Athanasius  in  the  East  and  by  the  Council  of  Carthage  in 
the  West  and  accepted  by  the  universal  Church — the  canon 
of  the  Orthodox  Church,  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  of  the 
Authorized  English  New  Testament.1 

The  question  naturally  arises  as  to  the  position  of  the 
Apocrypha.  I  do  not  suppose  that  that  will  in  the  present 
day  cause  any  real  difficulty.  The  dogmatic  motives  which 
prevailed  at  the  Reformation  and  demanded  either  its  inclu¬ 
sion  or  exclusion  would  have  no  weight  now.  Few  Roman 
Catholic  controversialists  would  consider  that  the  use  of 
images  or  prayers  for  the  dead  could  be  defended  by  the 
dubious  Apocryphal  texts  which  used  to  be  quoted,  and  no 
Protestant  would  hold  that  pure  doctrine  could  be  endan- 
.  gered  by  the  admission  of  the  deutero-canonical  books  into 
our  Bibles.  Moreover,  the  progress  of  historical  investigation 
has  enabled  us  to  recognize  the  permanent  value  of  the  books 
of  the  Apocrypha  in  the  study  of  the  influences  which  have 
contributed  to  the  growth  of  Christianity  and  the  knowledge 
of  its  environment.  I  do  not  think,  therefore,  that  any  school 
of  thought,  or  any  section  of  the  Christian  Church,  would 
doubt  that  it  should  be  included  in  the  Christian  Bible,  but 
on  the  lower  level  assigned  to  it  by  Athanasius  in  the  East 
and  by  Jerome  in  the  West.  We  must  have  our  com¬ 
plete  Bible,  but  we  do  not  place  all  parts  of  it  on  the 
same  level.2 

1  On  the  history  and  formation  of  the  canon  see  Ryle,  The  Canon 
of  the  Old  Testament;  Westcott,  The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament; 
Gregory,  Canon  and  Text  of  the  New  Testament;  Leipoldt,  Geschichte 
des  N eutestamentliche  Kanons ;  Zahn,  Geschichte  des  N eutestamentliche 
Kanons. 

2  Athanasius,  Festal  Letters,  xxxix.  (p.  552,  ed.  Robertson) :  “But 
for  greater  exactness  I  add  this  also,  writing  of  necessity ;  that  there 
are  other  books  besides  these,  not  indeed  included  in  the  canon,  but 
appointed  by  the  Fathers  to  be  read  by  those  who  newly  join  us, 
and  who  wish  for  instruction  in  the  word  of  godliness.  The  Wisdom 
of  Solomon,  and  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach,  and  Esther,  and  Judith,  and 
Tobit,  and  that  which  is  called  the  Teaching  of  the  Apostles,  and  the 
Shepherd.  But  the  former,  my  brethren,  are  included  in  the  canon, 
the  latter  being  merely  read." 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  this  is  referred  to  by  Archbishop 
Philaret  in  The  Longer  Catechism  of  the  Russian  Church  (Blackmore, 
The  Doctrine  of  the  Russian  Church,  pp.  38,  39) : 

“  Q.  Why  is  there  no  notice  taken  in  this  enumeration  of  the  books 


230 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Then,  next,  we  are  not  concerned  with  particular  questions 
of  authorship  or  authenticity.  We  accept  the  Old  Testament 
as  containing  in  its  present  form  the  sum  of  the  teaching 
of  God  to  Israel,  the  religion  of  the  J  ews  as  it  was  at  the  time 
of  our  Lord,  the  record  of  an  inspired  revelation  as  it  was 
accepted  and  reinterpreted  by  Him.  We  are  not  concerned 
with  the  question  of  the  process  by  which  that  revelation 
was  given,  or  the  historical  sequence  of  events,  or  the  parti¬ 
cular  authorship  of  the  different  books.  So  also  we  receive 
the  New  Testament  as  containing  the  record  of  our  Lord’s 
teaching,  of  the  founding  of  the  Church,  of  the  witness  of 
the  Apostles,  of  the  types  of  Apostolic  teaching.  It  is  the 
record  which  the  consciousness  of  Christianity  has  felt 
to  correspond  with  its  needs.  Nor  are  we  here  concerned 
with  the  authorship  of  particular  books,  or  the  historical 
accuracy  of  every  detail.  What  we  mean  when  we  accept 
it  is  that  it  gives  us  a  true  record  of  what  Christianity  is. 

Then,  thirdly,  the  Church  has  never  formulated,  nor  have 
we  ever  received,  any  rule  of  interpretation.  We  recognize, 
indeed,  that  the  Bible  must  not  be  disconnected  from  the 
living  witness  of  the  Church,  that  no  wise  theologian  will 
ever  cut  himself  off  from  Christian  tradition,  that  in  study¬ 
ing  the  Scriptures  he  will  inquire  how  they  have  been  inter¬ 
preted  in  all  periods,  and  will  be  anxious  to  correct  the 
vagaries  of  any  particular  epoch  in  theology  by  a  wider 
knowledge  and  experience.  But  he  will  recognize  that  no 
rule  of  interpretation  has  been  given  by  the  Christian  Church. 

If  we  desire  any  formula  to  express  our  attitude  towards 
the  Scriptures,  I  think  that  we  may  with  some  confidence 
put  forward  the  language  of  our  Articles.  “  Holy  Scripture 
containeth  all  things  necessary  to  salvation :  so  that  whatso¬ 
ever  is  not  read  therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not 


of  the  Old  Testament,  of  the  book  of  the  Wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Sirach, 
and  of  certain  others  ? 

“  A .  Because  they  do  not  exist  in  the  Hebrew. 

“  Q.  How  are  we  to  regard  these  last-named  books  ? 

“  A.  Athanasius  the  Great  says  that  they  have  been  appointed  of 
the  Fathers  to  be  read  by  proselytes  who  are  preparing  for  admission 
into  the  Church.” 

The  principal  facts  concerning  the  reception  of  the  Apocrypha  in  the 
different  branches  of  Christendom  may  be  found  in  Gibson,  The 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  pp.  248  f£. 


THE  CREED 


231 

to  be  required  of  any  man,  that  it  should  be  believed  as  an 
article  of  the  Faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  or  necessary  to 
salvation.”1  No  wise  man  is  too  anxious  to  put  forward 
his  own  standpoint  or  to  impose  his  own  point  of  view  or 
that  of  his  society  on  the  Church;  but  I  feel  that  in  this 
Article  the  wisdom  of  our  Church  is  clearly  apparent.  The 
position  it  assumes  may  be  supported  by  many  extracts 
from  the  Christian  Fathers,  who  never  knew  any  other  point 
of  view;  it  corresponds  with  the  teaching  of  the  Eastern 
Church — although  that  body  would  attach  a  somewhat 
higher  value  to  tradition;  it  would  be  accepted  by  the 
great  body  of  those  styled  Protestants;  it  is  a  formula  on 
which  (if  a  formula  were  necessary)  we  might  unite;  yet  it 
does  not  prohibit  us  from  thinking  that  the  traditions  of  the 
Church  may  be  a  wise  guide  to  the  meaning  of  Scripture. 


VI 

For  I  think  experience  has  shown  that  a  religious 
society  requires  a  somewhat  more  definite  standard  of  union 
than  the  Bible  gives,  that  we  require  a  doctrinal  basis  of 
Christian  unity.  That  may,  I  believe,  be  found  for  us  in 
that  one  Creed  which  has  undoubted  oecumenical  authority, 
that  which  we  call  the  Nicene.2 

Let  me  put  before  you  the  reasons  for  accepting  this 
document  as  of  unique  authority.  Its  early  history,  indeed, 
is  somewhat  doubtful.  It  was  probably  the  traditional 

1  A  useful  list  of  quotations  from  the  Fathers  in  support  of  this 
Article  will  be  found  in  Bicknell,  Introduction  to  the  Thirty -nine 
Articles ,  p.  170. 

2  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  Christian  Creed  is  not  that  which 
we  call  the  Apostles’,  which  is  only  a  Western  creed,  and  in  its  origin 
is  a  Gallican  recension  made  in  the  fifth  or  sixth  century  of  the  old 
Roman  Creed. 

The  name  the  “  Nicene  Creed  ”  is  used  in  two  senses: 

1.  For  the  original  Creed  promulgated  at  Nicaea.  This  Creed, 
although  it  had  wide  influences,  was  never  as  far  as  we  know  used 
liturgically  in  the  Christian  Church. 

2.  As  in  our  Church,  for  the  creed  called  at  Chalcedon  the  Creed 
of  Constantinople.  This  Creed,  which  is  the  only  Catholic  Creed,  has 
always  borne  names  to  which  it  has  no  claim.  For  the  sake  of 
convenience  it  is  always  called  in  these  lectures  the  Nicene  Creed. 

The  whole  subject  of  the  history  of  the  Creed  may  most  con¬ 
veniently  be  studied  in  Burn,  Introduction  to  the  Creeds. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


232 

creed  of  the  Church  of  J  erusalem  enriched  by  all  the  special 
clauses  of  the  original  Nicene  Creed.  Then  for  some  reason 
or  other  it  obtained  the  name  of  the  Creed  of  Constantinople, 
and  was  believed,  almost  certainly  erroneously,  to  have  been 
put  forth  by  the  Second  General  Council,  held  in  that  city. 
But  these  uncertainties  are  of  little  moment.  There  are 
two  facts  which  give  it  a  unique  claim  to  be  accepted.  The 
one  is  that  it  was  solemnly  put  forth  as  containing  the  Chris¬ 
tian  faith  by  the  Fourth  General  Council,  that  of  Chalcedon, 
held  in  the  year  451,  that  Council  which  may  be  held  to  have 
concluded  and  summed  up  the  long  series  of  doctrinal  con¬ 
troversies  on  the  Person  of  Christ  which  disturbed  the  Chris¬ 
tian  world  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  The  “  Exposi¬ 
tion  of  Faith  ”  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  is  undoubtedly 
the  most  authoritative  document  of  a  doctrinal  character 
ever  put  forth  in  the  Christian  Church.1 

But  the  authority  of  a  General  Council  is  not  the  only 
claim  this  Creed  can  make.  It  has  also  been  accepted  by 
the  whole  Christian  Church.  Gradually,  by  a  process  which 
cannot  be  completely  traced,  it  became  first  the  baptismal 
creed  of  the  whole  Eastern  Church,  and  then  the  Eucharistic 
creed  of  East  and  West  alike.  It  is  recognized  by  all  theo¬ 
logians  that  the  decisions  of  a  General  Council  cannot  obtain 
full  authority  by  the  action  of  the  Council  alone.  They 
must  be  accepted  by  the  Church.  In  fact,  it  is  only  accep¬ 
tance  by  the  Church  which  makes  a  council  general.  This 
Creed  has  that  acceptance  in  a  way  that,  apart  from  the 
Scriptures,  no  other  document  in  the  Christian  world  has.  ? 

Then,  secondly,  it  has  the  merit  of  taking  us  behind  all 
our  divisions.  Here  is  a  document  certainly  older  than 
any  of  the  great  divisions  of  Christianity.  Here  is  one  that 
East  and  West  alike  accept.  Here  is  one  that  the  greater 
number  of  the  churches  which  date  from  the  Reformation 
have  also  received.  There  are  some,  indeed,  who  have 
repudiated  all  creeds  as  the  basis  of  union;  I  shall  speak  of 
them  shortly.  But  apart  from  these  it  is  a  document  that 
the  greater  number  of  reformed  as  of  the  more  ancient 
churches  accept  and  reverence. 

1  This  may  be  studied  most  conveniently  in  Bindley,  Oecu 
menical  Documents  of  the  Faith,  pp.  217-243,  292-298. 


THE  CREED 


233 


And  then,  thirdly,  it  has  unequalled  merit.  Is  there  any 
other  Christian  document  which  has  such  dignity  and  power? 
“  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  Very  God  of  very  God, 
Begotten,  not  made,  Being  of  one  substance  with  the  Father, 
By  whom  all  things  were  made :  Who  for  us  men,  and  for  our 
salvation,  came  down  from  heaven.”  Is  there  any  other 
Christian  document  which  more  completely  responds  to  the 
beliefs  and  ideals  of  every  orthodox  Christian  ?  Is  there 
any  other  document  with  greater  completeness  and  yet 
economy  of  theology  ?  It  says  what  is  necessary.  It  omits 
what  is  unessential.  Is  there  any  other  document  to  which 
a  reasonable  criticism  can  make  fewer  objections?  At  the 
present  time  there  is  much  criticism,  not,  it  seems  to  me,  very 
reasonable,  directed  against  the  “  Exposition  of  Faith  ”  of 
Chalcedon.  People  want  something  more  responsive  to 
their  religious  feelings  than  the  formula  of  the  two  Natures 
and  the  one  Person.  I  do  not  know  that  I  personally  sym¬ 
pathize  with  all  this.  But  none  of  these  things  touch  the 
Creed.  It  is  more  comprehensive  than  the  Chalcedonian 
theology.  It  embraces  both  sides.  The  central  faith  of 
the  Church  has  been  from  the  beginning  the  belief  in  Christ. 
Here  we  have  that  belief  expressed  in  its  completeness  and 
its  fulness  without  mutilation  but  without  addition. 

I  would  put  it  to  you  that  here  we  have  a  document  on 
which  the  orthodox  Christian  world  may  unite. 

But  now  I  want  you  to  go  a  little  farther.  If  you  turn 
once  more  to  this  “  Exposition  of  Faith  ”  of  Chalcedon,  you 
will  find  that  it  not  only  puts  forward  a  creed  but  also  it  bids 
you  neither  alter  it,  nor  add  to  it,  nor  put  forward  any  other 
in  its  place. 

Thus  it  legislates: 

“  These  things  having  been  defined  by  us  with  all  possible 
accuracy  and  care,  the  Holy  and  Oecumenical  Synod  hath 
decreed  that  it  is  unlawful  for  anyone  to  present,  write, 
compose,  devise  or  teach  to  others  any  other  Creed ;  but  that 
those  who  dare  either  to  compose  another  Creed,  or  to  bring 
forward  or  teach  or  deliver  another  Symbol  to  those  wishing 
to  turn  to  the  full  knowledge  of  the  truth  from  Paganism  or 
from  Judaism  or  from  heresy  of  any  kind  whatsoever — that 
such  persons  if  bishops  or  clerics,  shall  be  deposed — the 


234 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


bishop  from  the  episcopate,  and  clerics  from  the  clerical  office 
— and,  if  monks  or  laics,  they  shall  be  anathematized.”1 

Let  us  be  quite  clear  what  this  means.  It  does  not,  I 
think,  forbid,  certainly  it  has  never  been  held  to  forbid,  each 
church  from  having  its  own  traditional  baptismal  creed. 
The  Nicene  Creed  was  only  slowly  adopted  as  such  in  the 
East  and  never  in  the  West.  It  does  not,  again,  forbid  us 
to  put  forth  for  the  purpose  of  instruction  any  catechism, 
or  synopsis  of  the  Faith,  or  any  expositions  of  the  duties 
and  beliefs  of  a  Christian.  What  it  does  forbid  is  putting 
forward  as  a  necessary  condition  of  union,  or  as  necessary 
for  salvation  (to  use  a  conventional  term)  any  other  docu¬ 
ment  or  creed,  or  making  any  alteration  in  the  text  of  the 
Creed,  except,  of  course,  with  the  authority  of  a  council  equal 
in  weight  to  that  which  promulgated  this  Creed.  It  would, 
therefore,  forbid  (as  indeed  was  seen  in  the  time  of  Leo  III.) 
the  interpolation  of  the  filioque  clause.  It  would,  therefore, 
forbid  us  to  put  forward  as  in  any  way  equal  in  authority 
to  the  Nicene  Creed  that  document  which  we  call  the 
Athanasian  Creed.  Let  us  recognize  that  whatever  be  the 
value  of  that  document,  to  hold  as  some  Churchmen  seem 
to  do  that  it  is  a  Catholic  Creed  is  a  violation  of  every 
Catholic  principle.  The  position  we  in  the  Church  of 
England  seem  to  ascribe  to  it  is  a  sign  not  of  our  Catholicity, 
but  of  our  Insularity. 

The  rule  of  Chalcedon  further  condemns  all  those  articles, 
symbols,  expositions  of  the  Faith  which  from  the  days  of 
the  Reformation  have  divided  and  burdened  Christianity: 
the  Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  the  Thirty-nine  Articles, 
the  Westminster  Confession,  the  Augsburg  Confession,  the 
Confessio  Helvetica  Prima,  the  Confessio  Helvetica  Secunda, 
the  Confessio  Gallica,  the  Confessio  Belgica ,  and  many 
others  which  may  be  found  in  the  pages  of  collections 
of  symbols  or  the  chronicles  of  the  Reformation.  These, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  put  forward  as  a  necessary  condition 
of  religious  union,  it  would  definitely  and  authoritatively 
condemn.  And  is  there  anyone,  lay  or  clerical  of  any  church, 
who  would  not  be  glad  to  be  relieved  of  the  burden  they 
impose  on  him  ?  The  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  so  composed 

1  Bindley,  op .  cit.,  p.  298. 


THE  CREED 


235 


that  we  can  honestly  sign  them,  but  are  they  any  real 
advantage  to  the  Church  ?  The  Bishop  of  Hereford  made 
an  heroic  attempt  to  defend  them,  but  his  defence  was,  as 
might  be  expected,  confined  to  those  articles  of  which  he 
happened  to  approve.  I  doubt  whether  the  adherents  of 
anv  other  church  feel  that  the  inheritance  of  these  Reforma- 
tion  formularies  is  any  great  gain. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  could  recognize  that  these 
documents  are  the  venerable  relics  of  many  sincere  attempts 
to  find  and  define  the  truth.  But  not  only  have  they  ful¬ 
filled  their  part  and  ceased  to  respond  to  any  real  conviction ; 
they  were  always  the  symbol  of  Christian  dissension  and  of 
that  harmful  desire  to  impose  on  others  an  elaborate  and 
complete  system  of  theology  as  necessary  to  salvation. 
Nor,  again,  do  I  mean  that  each  national  church  or  even  each 
diocese  should  not  put  forward  for  the  instruction  of  the 
people  such  catechism  or  exposition  of  the  Faith  as  the  time 
may  demand.  What  I  do  mean  is  that  as  a  necessary  basis 
for  the  union  of  Christendom  the  Creed  which  the  Christian 
Church  has  accepted  is  sufficient. 

When  we  followed  the  history  of  the  divisions  of  Christen¬ 
dom  we  saw  how  again  and  again  it  was  this  desire  to  impose 
further  beliefs  on  others,  or  to  convict  them  of  what  we 
may  call  constructive  heresy,  which  was  the  fruitful  cause 
of  disunion.  The  interpolation  of  the  Creed  by  the  Western 
Church,  the  endless  Speculations  of  the  schoolmen  and  of  the 
Reformers,  the  desire  of  making  all  men  believe  a  particular 
theory  of  Christendom,  rent  the  Church. 

If  we  desire  to  adhere  to  these  emblems  of  disunion  whose 
limited  authority  we  all  recognize,  we  shall  never  unite.  If 
we  are  prepared  to  concentrate  our  gaze  on  what  is  higher 
and  more  universal  than  all  these,  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  message  of  the  Gospel,  as  expressed  in  the  one 
Catholic  Creed,  we  shall  attain  that  unity  of  life  and  faith 
that  we  desire. 

VII 

I  want  now  to  consider  certain  objections  which  might  be 
put  forward  by  those  who  would  either  like  to  have  no  creed 
or  would  desire  quite  a  new  one  of  their  own  construction. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


236 

There  are  those  first  who  would  object  to  anything  which 
came  from  a  General  Council.  They  would  draw  attention 
to  the  unsatisfactory  character  of  much  that  happened  at 
Chalcedon.  It  was,  they  would  say,  using  the  words  of 
Harnack,  not  only  a  robber  but  also  a  traitor  council.  This 
is,  in  my  opinion,  both  an  unfair  judgement  and  also  shews 
a  misunderstanding  of  what  a  General  Council  is. 

The  scandals  of  Church  history  are  a  favourite  topic  with 
some  opponents  of  Christianity  and  with  some  ecclesiastical 
partisans,  who  forget  that  similar  accusations  to  those  which 
they  make  against  movements  which  they  criticize  may  often 
be  brought  against  movements  of  which  they  approve. 
Some  of  our  Protestant  friends  are  very  severe  on  the  Great 
Councils;  let  them  remember  that  an  unsympathetic  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  Reformation  may  leave  them  little  to  be  proud 
of.  Some  of  our  Roman  Catholic  friends  are  very  scornful 
of  the  Reformation;  let  them  remember  that  a  candid 
history  of  the  Papacy  or  the  Inquisition  will  not  be  impres¬ 
sive.  They  are  in  much  need  of  charitable  judgement.  I 
have  heard  my  Anglican  friends  very  scornful  of  the  Puritans. 
Even  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  hardly  fair  to  the  Covenanters. 
But  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England  as  described  by 
Buckle  is  not  altogether  edifying.  The  fact  is  that  we  all 
need  a  great  deal  of  charity ;  and  we  ought,  I  think,  to  look 
a  little  deeper  than  all  this  partisan  histo^  writing. 

It  has  been  a  characteristic  of  Christianity  that  it  has  at 
certain  periods  seized  the  imagination  and  stirred  the  intel¬ 
lect  of  whole  peoples.  Its  influence  has  not  been  confined 
to  select  circles.  It  was  so  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries. 
It  was  so  again  at  the  Reformation.  It  will  be  so  whenever 
the  time  comes  that  the  Gospel  lights  up  the  life  of  India 
or  of  Africa.  So  in  the  days  of  the  Councils  an  undeveloped 
world  was  stirred  to  its  very  depths;  lofty  thoughts  were 
brought  in  contact  with  a  half-pagan  population;  the  new 
wine  of  the  Gospel  was  too  powerful  for  some  of  those  who  had 
drunk  of  it,  and  so  on  the  stage  of  world  history,  when  holy 
things  were  brought  from  the  church  and  the  cell  and  the  study 
into  the  public  arena,  there  were  exhibited  side  by  side  and 
often  even  in  the  same  person  Christian  holiness  and  undisci¬ 
plined  passion.  The  wise  man  will  not  be  too  ready  to  judge. 


THE  CREED 


237 

But  the  particular  character  of  the  Council  is  not  in  itself 
a  mark  of  true  value.  We  may  well  believe  that  out  of  the 
contest  and  controversy  a  new  stage  in  thought  may  be 
reached,  just  as  in  a  great  battle  out  of  the  passion  and 
bloodshed  may  come  a  step  forward  in  human  progress.  For 
the  work  of  a  Council  is  that  it  formulates  conclusions,  and 
the  authority  of  these  conclusions  depends  upon  their 
acceptance  by  the  voice  of  the  Church.  The  Creed  which 
was  adopted  at  Chalcedon  was  accepted  by  the  Church,  and 
whatever  criticism  we  may  have  to  make  against  the  Council 
will  not  take  away  from  the  authority  of  the  Creed. 

And  then  let  us  remember  that  the  Creed  was  in  no  way 
the  work  of  the  Council.  It  was  the  formulated  product  of 
the  best  Christian  thought  through  four  centuries.  The 
history  of  the  Creed  is  the  history  of  the  concentrated  effort 
of  the  human  intellect  in  the  study  of  divine  things,  of 
Greek  acuteness,  of  Latin  directness,  inspired  by  God’s 
Holy  Spirit.  Except  in  the  case  of  Athanasius,  it  is  perhaps 
true  that  we  cannot  assign  a  single  clause  to  any  one  theo¬ 
logian,  but  it  enshrines  the  labours  of  all  the  great  Christian 
teachers  of  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  centuries.  Ignatius, 
Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  Origen,  Eusebius,  Athanasius,  the 
Cappadocians  have  all  directly  or  indirectly  left  their  mark 
on  it.  It  has  embodied  for  future  generations  the  results 
of  many  centuries  of  religious  thought.  I  do  not  think 
really  that  we  need  be  concerned  about  the  failures  of  that 
Council  which  set  its  mark  upon  the  Creed. 

Then  next  there  are  our  Modernists.  They  would  like 
something  much  more  up  to  date.  Some  of  them  have 
written  for  us  new  creeds.  They  are  anxious  to  excise  all 
inconvenient  historical  references.  They  sometimes  leave  us 
in  doubt  whether  they  really  accept  the  traditional  belief  in 
the  Incarnation  at  all.  Now  I  would  put  before  you  that  on 
such  lines  there  is  no  hope  of  any  sort  of  Christian  reunion  at 
all .  The  living,  working  Christianity  of  to-day  is  an  orthodox 
Christianity.  It  is  only  as  orthodox  Christians  we  can  unite. 

I  am  not,  indeed,  one  who  would  be  anxious  to  put  too 
rigid  an  interpretation  on  our  formulas,  or  to  demand  too 
narrow  a  principle  of  uniformity.  It  will  always  be  right 
and  necessary  that  the  same  document  should  be  held  by 


238 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


different  persons  in  different  ways.  To  impose  any  parti¬ 
cular  interpretation  on  the  Creed  (as  some  bishops  would 
have  us  do)  is  the  same  as  to  put  forth  a  new  and  additional 
creed.  We  all  hold  some  clauses  to  be  symbolical  in  their 
language,  and  I  think  it  quite  honest  to  extend  that  prin¬ 
ciple,  although  personally  I  should  not  agree  with  it.  All 
that  the  Church  may  demand  is  that  the  interpretation  should 
be  in  the  opinion  of  a  just  judge  one  that  may  reasonably  be 
held.  If  I  am  asked,  as  I  sometimes  am,  what  is  implied 
in  expressing  honestly  our  adhesion  to  the  Creed,  I  would 
answer  that  it  means  that  we  accept  that  view  of  Christ  and 
His  Gospel  that  the  Church  has  always  held,  even  if  there  may 
be  details  on  which  we  doubt.  We  do  not  want  rigidity, 
and  we  do  not  want  to  build  up  constructive  heresy. 

But  having  said  this  much  I  would  put  to  you  that  the 
only  Christian  reunion  that  is  possible  is  the  reunion  of 
that  Christianity  which  is  commonly  designated  as  orthodox 
— a  reunion  on  the  basis  of  belief  in  the  Incarnation  and  the 
Trinity.  However  much  we  may  respect  the  personal 
character  or  the  intellectual  attainments  of  the  Unitarian, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  place  for  him  in  the  re¬ 
constructed  Church.  To  the  Modernist  I  would  say  that  he 
must  settle  with  his  own  conscience  whether  he  can  accept 
the  Creed  of  the  Church.  We  cannot  write  a  new  creed  for 
him,  nor  reconstruct  Christianity  to  suit  his  taste.  It  is  in 
the  traditional  beliefs  now  as  always  that  the  whole  Church 
— Protestant  and  Catholic  alike — finds  its  inspiration,  and 
these  beliefs  are  put  forward  in  the  Creed  in  the  manner 
which  may  most  generally  obtain  acceptance. 

And  then,  thirdly,  there  are  those  who  belong  to  Christian 
societies  which  would  repudiate  the  restraint  of  any  creed. 
They  would  accept  the  maxim,  “The  Bible  and  the  Bible 
only  is  the  religion  of  Protestants,”  in  its  most  extreme 
form.  They  would  consider  the  Bible  without  any  other 
guidance  as  a  sufficient  basis  for  the  unity  of  the  Church. 
Now,  I  would  venture  to  put  to  such  persons  two  things.  In 
the  first  place,  does  experience  suggest  that  this  unlimited 
private  judgement  is  a  sufficient  basis  for  a  religious  society  ? 
If  people  are  to  unite  together  in  the  realities  of  religious  life 
and  worship,  there  must  be  a  sufficient  community  of  belief. 


THE  CREED 


239 

The  Church  is  a  voluntary  society  which  none  need  join  and 
no  one’s  conscience  will  be  strained.  We  would  wish  it  to 
be  as  comprehensive  as  possible.  We  would  not  desire  to 
banish  any  unnecessarily  from  its  communion.  But  what¬ 
ever  limits  we  may  lay  down  there  will  always  be  some  who 
will  linger  on  the  threshold  and  cannot  quite  enter  in.  Every 
religious  community  needs  a  common  basis  of  belief,  and 
I  do  not  think  that  for  a  widespread  society  the  vague¬ 
ness  which  may  suffice  for  a  small  society  will  be  adequate. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  if  the  Church  be  united  all  those 
sectarian  distinctions  which  have  been  the  rallying-point  of 
the  separated  community  will  disappear.  Reunion  means 
giving  up  minor  distinctions  and  rallying  on  the  belief  in 
Christ.  It  is  that  belief  that  the  symbol  expresses. 

And  then,  next,  I  would  ask  such  people  to  consider  what 
is  possible.  Our  horizon  at  the  present  time  must  surely 
embrace  the  orthodox  and  separated  churches  of  the  East, 
the  Scandinavian  churches,  Lutheran  churches,  the  Protes¬ 
tant  Reformed  churches,  the  Anglican  Church,  the  English 
Nonconformists,  the  Scottish  Presbyterians.  Now  for  these 
to  come  together  it  must  mean  that  each  will  have  to  give 
up  much  as  a  condition  of  union.  But  do  you  think  that  the 
Orthodox  Church  of  the  East  or  the  Anglican  Church  will 
accept  any  basis  but  the  Christian  Creed  ?  I  do  not  wish 
to  speak  too  positively,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  either  the 
Scandinavian  churches,  or  the  Scotch  Presbyterians,  or  the 
great  majority  of  English  Nonconformists  would  be  content 
with  anything  less.  Here  you  have  a  document  older  than 
all  our  divisions,  expressing  the  faith  which  we  all  accept, 
and  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  lying  behind  all  our 
theology.  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  unite  on  any  other 
basis  but  that  of  the  Catholic  Creed. 


VIII 

The  conclusion,  then,  that  I  would  put  before  you,  is  that 
the  right  and  wise  basis  of  doctrinal  union  should  be  the 
acceptance  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  Catholic  Creed. 
The  reasons  for  this  are : 

1.  The  basis  of  union  must  be  discipleship  of  Christ  and 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 


240 

acceptance  of  the  Gospel  which  He  taught.  The  record  of 
that  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures,  and  the  Creed  represents 
the  way  in  which  the  universal  consciousness  of  the  Christian 
Church  has  formulated  its  belief. 

2.  The  Creed  comes  to  us  with  the  credentials  of  wider 
experience  than  any  other  document.  If  there  is  anything 
which  can  claim  in  any  real  sense  to  be  Catholic  it  is  the 
Creed.  It  is  accepted  by  the  vast  majority  of  Christian 
societies,  although  some  of  them  may  ascribe  to  it  more 
authority  and  some  less.  It  is,  therefore,  a  document  behind 
our  divisions  which  expresses  the  points  in  which  we  are 
united. 

3.  Christian  experience  has  shewn  us  how  the  most 
fruitful  causes  of  division  have  been  the  many  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  add  to  the  necessary  doctrine  of 
the  Church,  the  desire  to  impose  more  and  more  on  others, 
the  passion  for  a  complete  and  logical  orthodoxy.  It  is  these 
which  have  created  all  those  sectarian  documents  which  have 
been  the  source  and  sign  of  Christian  divisions  and  must  be 
all  alike  dispensed  with. 

4.  It  is  a  fundamental  Catholic  rule  that  no  one  must  add 
to  the  Christian  Creed,  or  put  forward  any  other  document 
in  the  place  of  it,  or  in  addition  to  it.  We  English  Church¬ 
men,  at  any  rate,  inasmuch  as  we  claim  to  be  guided  by 
Catholic  principles,  must  obey  that  rule  and  thus  set  an 
example  to  other  religious  bodies. 

I  have  on  this  lecture  freely  used  the  word  Catholic.  That, 
like  every  other  great  word,  has  often  been  misapplied. 
Often  it  is  used  not  of  those  things  which  have  a  wide 
acceptance,  or  have  been  the  heritage  of  the  Christian  Church 
through  many  centuries,  but  of  everything  which  is  sectional 
and  sectarian.  But  because  it  has  been  misused,  that  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  use  it.  In  a  very  real  sense  there 
is  a  faith  once  for  all  delivered  to  the  saints.  In  a  very  real 
sense  the  teaching  of  Christianity  has  been  throughout  all 
the  ages  the  same .  In  a  very  real  sense  there  is  at  the  present 
day  a  basis  of  a  common  Catholic  Christianity.  Let  us 
sweep  away  all  the  many  additions  that  have  overshadowed 
it,  and  attempt  to  unite  on  the  traditional  faith  of  Christi¬ 
anity — the  belief  in  the  historical  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 


LECTURE  VII 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

“  This  is  a  true  saying,  If  a  man  desire  the  office  of  a  bishop, 
he  desireth  a  good  work.” — i  Tim.  iii.  i. 

Unity  in  life  and  organization.  Episcopacy.  Its  authority.  Its 
value.  Its  wide  acceptance.  A  constitutional  Episcopacy.  The 
Enabling  Act,  a  first  step  to  reunion.  The  restoration  of  the  com¬ 
plete  Catholic  tradition. 

What  constitutes  a  valid  ordination.  The  controversy  concern¬ 
ing  Anglican  Orders.  Opinion  of  Monseigneur  Duchesne.  The 
Bull  Apostolicae  Curae.  Lessons  of  the  controversy. 

The  minister  of  ordination.  The  teaching  of  the  Church  and  of 
the  Church  of  England.  The  meaning  of  Orders.  The  character . 
The  power  of  the  Church.  The  teaching  of  the  liturgies.  Absolu¬ 
tion.  Khomiakoff.  The  true  theory. 

The  Apostolic  Succession.  A  mechanical  theory.  Gives  no 
security.  Inconsistent  with  facts.  Without  authority.  The  true 
theory  of  Orders  and  Sacraments.  Recognition  of  non-episcopal 
Orders  as  valid.  Episcopacy  and  episcopal  ordination  necessary 
for  Unity.  Episcopal  ordination  the  rule  of  the  Church. 

Unity  in  the  Sacrament.  Primitive  union.  Modern  disunion. 
The  institution  of  the  Sacrament.  The  Jewish  Passover.  The 
command  of  our  Lord.  The  teaching  of  the  Undivided  Church. 
Causes  of  division.  Hopes  of  reunion. 

Conclusion.  Vagueness  and  over-dogmatism.  The  possible  basis 
of  a  reunited  Church. 

A  fundamental  precept  of  Christianity  is  brotherhood, 
and  the  Christian  Church  in  one  of  its  aspects  is  the  embodi¬ 
ment  of  this  conception.  The  purpose  of  the  Church  is  to 
bind  all  Christians  together  as  members  of  one  society  in 
Christ,  and  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
How  is  the  Church  to  be  organized  so  as  to  accomplish  this 
purpose  ?  In  other  words,  what  should  be  the  organization 
of  the  Church  ?  The  problem  is  not  a  simple  one,  for  the 
unity  that  we  desire  is  one  which  must  exhibit  itself  alike 
in  the  small  unit  of  the  congregation,  in  the  larger  unit  of 
the  nation,  in  the  still  larger  unit  of  a  Church  which  tran¬ 
scends  nations.  Many  of  us  would  feel  that  national  Chris¬ 
tianity  has  been  in  the  past  one  of  the  most  fruitful  forms  of 

241  16 


242  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

Christian  life,  but  it  has  sometimes  been  attained  through 
the  suppression  of  the  living  reality  of  the  smaller  unit, 
and  it  often  seems  to  conflict  with  the  wider  mission  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  to  bind  together  the  nations  of  the  world.  A  merely 
national  Christianity  cannot  be  the  inspiration  of  a  League 
of  Nations.  That  is  why  we  must  always  extend  our  horizon 
to  other  countries  and  not  be  content  with  a  national  solu¬ 
tion  of  the  problem.  What,  then,  should  be  the  outward 
form  of  the  Christian  Church  ? 

I 

The  historical  review  with  which  we  began  this  course 
has,  I  think,  made  certain  points  clear.  The  foundation  of 
that  society  which  we  call  the  Christian  Church  was  a  part 
of  the  divine  plan,  and  to  that  end  our  Lord  appointed  His 
Apostles,  who  became  the  first  ministers  of  the  new  society; 
but  He  gave  no  directions  as  to  the  form  or  organization  of 
the  new  community,  and  the  actual  organization  which  was 
ultimately  developed  was  different  from  anything  which  He 
personally  established.  The  Apostles  as  the  first  rulers 
of  the  Church  gradually  built  up  a  ministry  adapted  to  the 
conditions  of  the  times,  but  they,  too,  gave  no  directions 
that  have  been  preserved  for  us  in  any  trustworthy  or 
authoritative  manner  as  to  what  should  be  the  form  of  the 
society,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  after  they  passed  away 
we  find  the  Church  ruled  over  by  officers  different  from  those 
that  had  existed  in  the  Apostolic  Church  as  it  is  presented 
to  us,  although  doubtless  linked  to  it  by  a  close  orgarffc 
connection. 

Now,  the  only  deduction  we  can  make  from  this  is 
that  while  it  was  clearly  intended  that  the  Church  should 
possess  a  properly  organized  ministry,  it  was  not  intended 
that  any  particular  form  should  be  essential.  The  Church 
should  freely  create  its  own  ministry,  and  might  presumably 
also  change  at  some  future  time  what  it  had  itself  created, 
or  adapt  it  to  newer  conditions.  We  cannot  therefore  say 
that  any  form  is  essential  to  entitle  it  to  be  called  a  church, 
nor  are  we  entitled  to  say  that  any  particular  Christian 
society  has  no  claim  to  be  considered  a  part  of  the  Church 


EPISCOPACY 


243 


because  it  has  not  a  particular  form  of  ministry.  I  want 
very  carefully  to  guard  against  any  overstatement  or  over¬ 
emphasis,  as  I  am  now  going  to  argue,  within  limits  which  I 
believe  to  be  legitimate,  in  favour  of  Episcopacy  as  the  right 
form  of  Church  government. 

I  would  do  so  on  two  grounds.  In  the  first  place,  because 
Episcopacy  has  far  greater  authority  than  any  other  form. 
It  has  indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  no  certain  Apostolic  authority, 
but  neither  has  any  other  form.  It  has  been  shewn  already 
that  that  is  true  of  the  Papacy  equally  with  Presbyterianism 
and  Congregationalism ;  that  although  the  government  of 
the  local  community  was  in  Apostolic  days  Presbyterian, 
that  was  not  the  government  in  any  way  of  the  Church  as  a 
whole,  for  the  local  ministry  occupied  a  subordinate  and  not 
very  important  place;  that  Congregationalism  likewise  has 
no  real  authority,  for  although  it  represents  an  aspect 
of  the  primitive  society,  in  no  sense  was  it  the  form  in 
which  the  Church  was  organized  nor  does  it  preserve  the 
principles  which  inspired  its  growth.  Both  these  forms, 
indeed,  as  they  exist  at  the  present  day,  represent  antiquarian 
revivals,  an  artificial  imitation  of  certain  aspects  of  the 
Church  polity  of  Apostolic  times.  They  were  devised  in 
response  to  a  real  need  and  because  of  defects  in  the  Church 
life  of  later  times,  and  for  that  reason  they  may  claim  to 
have  been  legitimate  developments,  but  they  do  not  come 
to  us  with  any  authority  behind  them. 

It  is  argued,  indeed,  that  in  Apostolic  days  there  were 
two  forms  of  Christian  ministers.  There  was  the  extra¬ 
ordinary  ministry  existing  only  for  the  special  purpose  of 
the  time  and  not  intended  to  be  permanent.  There  was 
the  local  ministry  which  was  intended  to  be  a  model  for 
the  future.  Such  a  distinction  is  purely  arbitrary.  There  is 
no  means  of  distinguishing  between  the  one  and  the  other. 
If  the  local  ministry  in  the  form  in  which  it  then  existed 
was  intended  to  be  permanent,  on  what  grounds  can  we  say 
that  the  same  was  not  true  of  the  general  ministry  ?  If 
that  was  not  to  be  preserved,  there  was  no  reason  why  the 
former  should  be.  Clearly  it  was  instinctively  felt  that 
theHocal  ministry  of  presbyters  was  not  adequate  for  the 
changed  circumstances  that  came  as  the  Apostles  passed 


244  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

away;  and  the  Church  instituted  a  form  of  government 
which  would  give  cohesion  under  the  new  conditions. 

What  I  would  claim  for  Episcopacy  is  the  clear  authority 
of  the  Church.  What  we  call  monarchical  Episcopacy 
dates  quite  certainly  from  the  close  of  the  Apostolic  period, 
and  from  that  time  until  the  Reformation  it  was  the  univer¬ 
sal  form  of  Church  government.  Since  then,  although  some, 
and  those  not  the  least  vigorous,  Christian  bodies  are  other¬ 
wise  organized,  it  still  remains  the  form  of  Church  govern¬ 
ment  of  the  vast  majority  of  Christians.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  overlaid  in  the  Roman  Church  by  papal  developments, 
and  the  independence  and  rights  of  the  Episcopate  have  been 
largely  destroyed,  but  even  there  it  remains  the  basis  of 
Church  order.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  a  neces¬ 
sary  infallibility  in  numbers.  I  do  not  wish  in  any  way  to 
assert  that  it  is  not  competent  for  the  Church  if  circumstances 
demand  it  to  change  its  constitution.  I  would  not  say  that 
those  churches  which  gave  up  Episcopacy  were  not  justified 
in  doing  so.  But  what  I  am  considering  is  a  possible  basis 
for  reunion.  We  recognize  that  the  Spirit  of  God  rules  His 
Church,  and  I  will  put  it  to  you,  therefore,  that  this  wide¬ 
spread,  long-continued  custom  cannot  lightly  be  put  aside. 
We  want  to  find  a  basis  on  which  we  can  unite  which  is  older 
than  our  divisions  and  comes  to  us  with  some  real  authority. 
I  would  put  it  to  you  that  the  historic  Episcopate  just 
presents  that. 

And  then,  secondly,  I  believe  that  experience  has  shewn 
that,  whatever  defects  there  have  been  or  may  be  still 
in  certain  presentments  of  Episcopacy,  it  really  forms  the 
best  basis  for  Christian  unity.  If  we  study  carefully  the 
history  of  its  growth  I  think  we  shall  find  that  it  was  as 
a  centre  of  unity  that  authority  was  first  given  to  it.  Igna¬ 
tius  looks  upon  it  as  a  support,  not  only  of  orthodoxy,  but 
of  unity.  There  were,  no  doubt,  many  small  congregations 
of  Christians  in  most  cities.  There  would  be  a  natural  ten¬ 
dency  for  them  to  break  off  and  perhaps  for  some  insignifi¬ 
cant  reason  form  separated  communities;  he  therefore  bids 
them  be  united  with  the  bishop  in  faith  and  love.  Episco¬ 
pacy  created  a  strong,  well-ordered  community,  firm  and 
elastic,  but  united  and  coherent,  which  remained  One  for 


EPISCOPACY 


245 

many  centuries,  until  the  unauthorized  claim  of  the  Papacy 
broke  up  this  unity.  At  the  Reformation  the  non-episcopal 
churches  which  then  grew  up  appear  to  us  without  any 
external  unity  which  could  bind  them  together,  and  with 
a  tendency  towards  greater  disunion.  I  gather,  too,  that  a 
widespread  feeling  is  growing  up  among  non-episcopal 
churches  that  some  more  developed  form  of  Church  organiza¬ 
tion  is  needed.  When  I  was  in  Australia  I  found  such  a 
movement  existing  among  the  Presbyterians.  They  wanted 
officials  of  the  type  of  bishops,  and  that  made  them  approach 
the  Church  of  England  there  with  a  desire  for  some  form  of 
reunion.  I  understand  that  the  Congregational  Church  in 
England  has  appointed  superintendents.  I  understand 
also  that  many  of  those  most  anxious  for  reunion  would 
not  only  accept  Episcopacy,  but  consider  that  an  episcopal 
organization  would  be  in  itself  a  gain.  I  feel,  therefore, 
that  there  is  here  strong  grounds  for  claiming  that  Episco¬ 
pacy  should  be  the  form  of  government  of  a  united  Church. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  Episcopacy  ?  That  is  a  vital 
question.  It  will  be  remembered  that  when  we  studied  the 
organization  of  the  Catholic  Church  there  was  much  evidence 
to  suggest  that  the  conception  of  Episcopacy  was  somewhat 
complex.  The  bishop  was  not  separated  from  the  people ;  he 
was  a  constitutional  bishop;  he  was  a  representative  bishop. 
The  machinery  was  no  doubt  clumsy,  but  it  is  quite  evident 
that  if  they  wished  it  both  the  college  of  Presbyters,  and 
the  great  body  of  the  laity  could  make  their  voice  heard. 
Cyprian  claims  never  to  act  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  clergy  and  laity.  He  bids  a  diocese  separate  itself 
from  an  unworthy  bishop.  The  authority  of  the  bishop 
seems  to  be  derived  from  and  dependent  on  the  Church. 
The  stages  by  which  a  separation  grew  up  between  the 
bishop  and  the  clergy,  between  the  clergy  and  the  people, 
were  gradual.  The  causes  were  various.  They  were  partly 
determined  by  and  came  from  the  theory  of  the  ministry 
which  owed  its  origin  to  St.  Augustine.  They  were  partly 
practical — the  authority  which  the  bishop  acquired  in  the 
break-up  of  society  when  the  civil  power  failed,  the  want  of 
machinery  by  which  the  clergy  and  laity  might  express 
their  opinion  in  the  large  dioceses  which  grew  up  beyond 


246  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

the  Alps:  the  absence,  in  fact,  of  anything  like  representa¬ 
tive  government.  So  the  medieval  bishop  was  evolved, 
and  from  the  medieval  bishop  came  the  Anglican. 

Now  it  is  not  the  medieval  bishop  but  the  Catholic  bishop 
of  the  primitive  Church  that  the  present  time  needs.  It  is 
the  constitutional  bishop.  Only  such  a  development 
would  respond  to  all  the  needs  of  the  Church  now.  If  we 
look  at  the  history  of  Presbyterianism  and  Congregational¬ 
ism  we  find  that  both  arose  from  a  movement  of  reaction 
against  the  claims  of  the  medieval  or  Anglican  bishop. 
Presbyterianism  was  the  reassertion  of  the  rights  and  pre¬ 
rogatives  of  presbyters,  which  had  long  been  lost.  Con¬ 
gregationalism  was  the  assertion  once  more  of  the  rights  of 
the  laity.  The  function  of  these  two  bodies  has  been  to 
revive,  to  assert,  to  keep  alive,  the  constitutional  rights  of 
these  two  classes,  just  as  the  function  of  the  Church  of 
England  has  been  to  revive  and  establish  the  claims  of  the 
bishop. 

But  not  only  this.  The  Church  of  England  also  is  feeling 
the  need  of  reviving  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  clergy 
and  the  laity.  It  has  itself  of  its  own  initiative  adopted  a 
constitution  which,  perhaps  not  quite  perfectly,  restores 
these  rights.  It  has  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  somewhat  curious 
sign  of  how  little  ecclesiastical  principles  have  been  thought 
out  or  understood  that  the  measure  which  represents  the 
first  step  towards  the  reconstitution  of  a  real  national  Church 
should  have  been  greeted  with  so  much  unintelligent  criti¬ 
cism  in  quarters  where  one  would  have  expected  it  to  be 
warmly  welcomed.  The  Enabling  Act  is  not  perhaps  an 
entirely  satisfactory  measure — what  statute  ever  has  been  ? 
— and  one  of  the  motives  which  inspired  it  may  have  been 
a  theory  of  the  independence  of  the  Church,  which  may  seem 
to  some  rather  exaggerated,  but  would  be  held  by  most  Non¬ 
conformists  to  be  the  veriest  commonplace;  but  substantially 
it  for  the  first  time  creates  the  conditions  which  might  make 
reunion  possible. 

It  is,  then,  not  Episcopacy  as  it  is  presented  by  the  medie¬ 
val  Church,  not  the  Anglican  presentment,  which  is  the 
medieval  conception  modified  by  a  good  deal  of  English 
common  sense,  but  the  constitutional  Episcopacy  of  the 


VALIDITY  OF  ORDERS 


247 

Catholic  Church  of  the  early  centuries  that  we  desire  as  a 
basis  for  reunited  Christendom.  Different  elements  in  this 
conception  have  been  preserved  by  Anglicans,  Presbyterians, 
Congregationalists.  If  English  Christianity  were  to  re¬ 
unite  on  such  a  basis  it  would  not  mean  that  the  different 
Nonconformist  bodies  joined  an  Episcopal  Church;  it  would 
mean  that  the  different  fragments  of  Christ’s  Church  in  the 
land,  separated  and  imperfect  as  they  are,  would  combine 
together  to  build  up  a  Church  which  would  then  present 
more  adequately  the  full  Catholic  tradition. 

It  is  a  great  service  that  a  section  of  the  Church  of  England 
has  rendered  to  the  modern  religious  world  in  emphasizing 
the  value  of  the  Catholic  tradition  of  the  Church.  The  great 
mistake  that  they  have  made  is  to  think  that  they  them¬ 
selves,  with  other  Episcopal  Churches,  have  preserved  the 
whole  Catholic  tradition.  That  is  not  so.  The  whole 
Church  has  been  divided.  The  traditions  have  been  muti¬ 
lated.  Each  separate  society  is  imperfect.  Each  pre¬ 
serves  and  exaggerates  some  element  in  that  tradition. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Anglican  Church  has  ex¬ 
aggerated  Episcopacy.  The  Presbyterians  have  set  a  very 
undue  emphasis  on  presbyters.  The  Congregationalists  are 
beginning  themselves  to  feel  that  they  are  much  too  indepen¬ 
dent.  But  each  has  preserved  something.  We  have  to  aim 
at  restoring  the  broken  unity  of  Christ’s  Church  and  at  com¬ 
bining  in  a  reunited  body  all  the  severed  strands  of  the  com¬ 
plete  tradition. 


II 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  form  of  the  Christian  ministry 
with  which  we  are  concerned:  a  still  greater  cause  of  con¬ 
troversy  has  been  the  question  of  ordination  and  the  theory 
of  Orders.  The  problems  we  have  now  to  discuss  are — 
What  do  we  mean  by  a  valid  ordination  ?  What  do  we 
mean  by  the  validity  of  Orders  ? 

Some  of  you  will  remember  the  movement  which  took 
place  in  the  years  1895  and  1896  for  a  closer  rapprochement 
between  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Church  of  France.1 

1  An  account  of  this  episode  will  be  found  in  Leo  XIII.  and 
Anglican  Orders,  by  Viscount  Halifax. 


248  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

It  was  a  movement  inspired  on  the  one  side  by  Lord 
Halifax  and  certain  leading  members  of  the  High  Church 
party,  on  the  other  side  by  a  body  of  able  and  liberal- 
minded  French  clergy  who  were  anxious  to  be  associated 
with  the  English  Church,  more  particularly  as  the  home  of 
reverent  criticism.  The  organ  of  the  movement  was  the 
Revue  anglo-romaine,  a  journal  which  had  but  a  short-lived 
existence — it  was  ultimately  suppressed  by  authority — but 
contained  much  valuable  and  original  investigation.  The 
movement  was  attacked — as  all  attempts  at  reunion  are — by 
the  bigots  and  scoffed  at  by  the  cynics,  but  it  was  a  most 
sincere  and  honourable  attempt  to  bring  nearer  to  one  another 
two  separated  branches  of  Christ’s  Church.  The  discussion 
turned  on  the  question  whether  English  Orders  were  valid. 
It  was  felt  that  if  once  the  Church  of  Rome  had  recognized 
their  validity  much  friction  between  the  two  Churches 
would  be  removed.  I  do  not  suppose  that  anyone  of  ex¬ 
perience  had  much  hope  of  any  other  result  than  their  further 
condemnation,  although  there  are  reasons  for  thinking  that 
it  was  only  strong  pressure  directed  by  the  Roman  hierarchy 
in  England  that  secured  this  result,  and  the  effect  of  the 
decision  on  the  temper  of  the  Church  of  England  was  a  great 
disappointment  to  those  who  had  brought  it  about.  But 
although  the  result  desired  by  those  who  first  raised  the 
question  was  not  attained,  the  discussion  they  initiated  was 
of  great  value.  It  served  to  elucidate  many  points  in  the 
history  of  Orders  and  cleared  away  many  historical  fig¬ 
ments.1 

There  are  two  points  in  this  discussion  to  which  I  would 
direct  your  attention.  The  first  is  a  statement  by  Mon¬ 
seigneur  Duchesne  of  the  essential  elements  in  a  valid  ordina¬ 
tion.  In  1894  there  was  published  by  the  Abbe  Portal, 
writing  under  the  nom  de  'plume  of  Fernand  Dalbus,  a 
discussion  on  Anglican  ordinations.2  In  that  work  he  had 

1  Perhaps  it  may  be  as  well  to  explain  that  the  reason  why  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Church  of  England  are  anxious  that  the  Roman  Church 
should  recognize  our  Orders  is,  not  that  we  have  any  doubt  of  them 
ourselves,  but  that  we  should  be  pleased  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
should  make  a  decision  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  truth 
and  charity. 

2  Les  Ordinations  A  nglicanes,  par  Fernand  Dalbus.  Arras :  Sueur- 
Charruey,  1894. 


ANGLICAN  ORDERS 


249 

maintained  that  the  form  of  the  Anglican  rite  was 
sufficient,  that  the  consecration  of  Parker  was  certain, 
but  that  as  the  English  rite  omitted  the  Porrectio  Instru¬ 
mentorum?- — that  is,  the  handing  to  the  ordained  the 
chalice  and  paten — the  ordination  was  null.  Further,  he 
suggested  that  there  might  be  occasionally  doubts  as  to 
the  “  intention  ”  of  those  who  had  been  consecrators 
in  the  Church  of  England.2  To  this  Duchesne  replied 
that  the  intention  of  doing  what  the  Church  does  must 
always  be  assumed  unless  there  is  proof  to  the  contrary. 
As  for  the  objection  from  the  defect  in  the  rite:  it  is  true 
that  the  Schoolmen  had  considered  that  the  essential  ele¬ 
ment  was  the  Porrectio  Instrumentorum.  But  this  had  been 
abandoned.  To  support  it,  it  would  be  necessary  to  con¬ 
sider  all  Greek  and  Oriental  ordinations  null  and  void, 
and  even  those  of  the  Latin  Church  before  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries.  In  any  case,  this  would  not  apply  to 
Anglican  Orders,  because  it  would  not  touch  the  consecra¬ 
tion  of  bishops,  and  ecclesiastical  antiquity  is  full  of  in¬ 
stances  of  episcopal  consecrations  being  celebrated  without 
the  inferior  degrees  having  been  previously  conferred. 
Many  Popes  have  been  directly  promoted  from  the  diaconate 

1  The  Porrectio  Instrumentorum  is  considered  (Summa  Theologica 
Supplementum,  Quaest.  XXXVII.,  Art.  V.)  to  give  the  character 
to  the  priest.  “  Cum  principalis  actus  sacerdotis  sit,  corpus  et 
sanguinem  Christi  consecrare :  recte  in  ipsa  calicis  datione  sub  certa 
verborum  forma  imprimitur  sacerdotalis  character.”  This  doctrine 
was  adopted  in  the  Decree  of  Eugenius  IV.  on  union  with  the  Arme¬ 
nians  promulgated  at  the  Council  of  Florence  (Mansi,  xxxi.,  p.  1058) : 

“  Sextum  sacramentum  est  ordinis,  cuius  materia  est  illud,  per  cuius 
traditionem  confertur  ordo,  sicut  presbyteratus  traditur  per  calicis 
cum  vino,  et  patenae  cum  pane  porrectionem.”  But  Morinus  ( De 
Ordinationibus)  has  shewn  that  this  ceremony  is,  comparatively 
Speaking,  modern,  and  was  not  found  in  the  old  Ordinals. 

2  Dalbus,  op.  cit.,  p.  37: 

“  Nous  croyons  ainsi  demontre: 

“  1.  Que  le  rite  de  TOrdinal  Anglican,  pris  en  lui-meme  pourrait 
etre  sufhsant; 

“2.  Que  la  consecration  de  Parker  doit  etre  regardee  comme  cer- 
taine  quant  au  fait,  mais  qu’un  doute  subsiste  au  sujet  de  l’inten- 
tion  du  consecrateur; 

“  3.  Que,  par  le  fait  des  alterations  introduces  dans  les  ceremonies 
de  Tadministration  des  pretres,  les  ordinations  Anglicanes  sont 
nulles.” 

And  this  is  summed  up  as  follows:  “Les  ordinations  Anglicanes, 
par  consequent,  sont  nulles,  a  cause  de  la  suppression  de  la  porrec- 
tion  des  instruments.” 


250  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

to  the  episcopate,  and  it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  eleventh 
century  that  the  custom  prevailed  of  ordaining  deacons 
who  had  been  elected  Pope  to  be  priests. 

Anglican  Orders,  therefore,  judged  by  an  historical  stan¬ 
dard,  are  sufficient  and  valid.1 

How  did  the  Roman  Church  act  ?  There  were  some 
who  would  have  followed  Duchesne’s  lead,  but  other  in¬ 
fluences  prevailed.  It  was  necessary,  owing  to  the  progress  of 
historical  investigation,  to  discard  much  on  which  stress  had 
been  laid  in  former  days.  Such  points  were  simply  passed 
over.  It  was  accepted  that  the  essentials  of  the  rite  are 
laying  on  of  hands  with  prayer.  According  to  the  theology 
of  the  Schoolmen  who  desired  to  make  their  doctrine  of 
the  Sacrament  correspond  to  the  distinctions  of  the  Aristote¬ 
lian  philosophy,  ‘  laying  on  of  hands  ’  is  the  ‘  matter  ’  of  the 
Sacrament,  prayers  are  the  ‘form.’  The  Bull  Apostolicae 
Curae 2  condemned  English  Orders  because  the  form  and 
intention  were  not  adequate.  The  form  of  the  Edwardine 
Ordinal  was  defective  because  it  contained  no  reference  to 
the  priesthood  or  the  Sacrifice.  “  The  words,  ‘  Receive  the 
Holy  Ghost,’  do  not  signify  in  the  least  definitely  the  order 
of  priesthood  nor  its  grace  and  power,  which  is  specially 
the  power  of  consecrating  and  offering  the  true  Body  and 
Blood  of  our  Lord  in  that  Sacrifice  which  is  not  a  nude  com¬ 
memoration  of  the  Sacrifice  offered  on  the  Cross.”3  It  goes 

1  Duchesne’s  review  is  printed  in  full  as  an  appendix  to  this  lecture . 

2  Published  in  Sanctissimi  Domini  Nostri  Leonis  Papae  XIIL 
Allocutiones,  Epistolae,  Constitutiones,  aliaque  acta  praecipua,  Volumen 
vi.  (1894-1897)  (Typis  societalis  sancti  Augustini,  Desclee  de  Brouwer 
et  Soc.,  Brugis  et  Insulis.  MCM).  Shortly  after  the  publication 
of  this  Bull  there  appeared  a  letter  in  defence  of  it  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy  in  England — A  Vindication  of  the  Bull  “  Aposto¬ 
licae  Curae  A  Letter  on  Anglican  Orders.  By  the  Cardinal  Arch¬ 
bishop  and  Bishops  of  the  Province  of  Westminster  in  reply  to  the 
letter  addressed  to  them  by  the  Anglican  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York.  London:  Longmans,  Green  and  Co.,  1898. 

3  Op.  cit.y  p.  205:  “  Iamvero  verba  quae  ad  proximam  usque 
aetatem  habentur  passim  ab  Anglicanis  tamquam  forma  propria 
ordinationis  presbyteralis  videlicet,  Accipe  Spiritum  Sanctum, 
minime  sane  significant  definite  ordinem  sacerdotii  vel  eius  gratiam 
et  potestatem,  quae  praecipue  est  potestas  consecrandi  et  offerendi 
verum  corpus  et  sanguinem  Domini  eo  sacrificio  quod  non  est  nuda 
commemoratio  sacrificii  in  Cruce  peracti.  Forma  huiusmodi  quidem 
est  postea  aucta  iis  verbis  ad  officium  et  opus  preshyteri;  sed  hoc  potius 
convincit,  Anglicanos  vidisse  ipsos  primam  earn  formam  fuisse  man- 


ANGLICAN  ORDERS 


251 

on  to  argue  that  as  changes  were  made  in  the  medieval  form, 
and  as  words  and  ceremonies  which  had  formed  part  of 
the  older  rite  were  omitted,  that  was  clear  evidence  that 
the  intention  of  the  Church  had  been  changed.  The  Church 
of  England  did  not  intend  to  do  what  the  Church  had  done, 
and  therefore  the  rite  was  defective  in  intention.* 1 

Now,  it  may  be  admitted  at  once  that  if  our  standard  is 
to  be  that  of  the  Roman  Church  at  the  present  day,  and  if, 
unless  a  rite  exactly  conforms  to  what  that  Church  teaches, 
it  is  invalid,  this  argument  is  sound.  The  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  does  not  teach  exactly  what  the  Roman  Church  now 
teaches,  and  has  deliberately  made  alterations,  but  it  appeals 
to  a  wider  and  more  Catholic  tradition,  and  judged  by  that 
both  the  form  and  intention  are  clearly  valid.  The  Church 
of  England  claims  to  do  what  our  Lord  intended  in  institut¬ 
ing  the  Eucharist,  what  the  Apostles  intended  when  they 
ordained  ministers,  what  the  Catholic  Church  as  a  whole 
has  intended  in  celebrating  the  Eucharist  and  in  ordaining 
bishops  and  priests.  It  maintains  that  its  “form,”  judged 
by  other  “  forms  ”  in  use  in  the  Church,  is  quite  sufficient. 
The  service  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  the  intention  is 
to  ordain  a  priest,  and  that  is  sufficient  to  answer  the  demands 
of  Leo  XIII.2 

cam  neque  idoneam  rei.  Eadem  vero  adiectio,  si  forte  quidem 
legitimam  significationem  apponere  formae  posset,  serius  est  in- 
ducta,  elapso  iam  saeculo  post  receptum  Ordinale  eduardianum; 
quum  propterea,  Hierarchia  extincta,  potestas  ordinandi  iam  nulla 
esset.” 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  207 :  “  Cum  hoc  igitur  intimo  formae  defectu  coniunctus 
est  defectus  intentionis ,  quam  aeque  necessario  postulat,  ut  sit, 
sacramentum.  De  mente  vel  intentione,  utpote  quae  per  se  quid- 
dam  est  interius,  Ecclesia  non  iudicat:  at  quatenus  extra  proditur, 
iudicare  de  ea  debet.  Iam  vero  quum  quis  ad  sacramentum  confi- 
ciendum  et  conferendum  materiam  formamque  debitam  serio  ac 
rite  adhibuit,  eo  ipso  censetur  id  nimirum  facere  intendisse  quod 
facit  Ecclesia.  Quo  sane  principio  innititur  doctrina  quae  tenet 
esse  vere  sacramentum  vel  illud,  quod  ministerio  hominis  haeretici 
aut  non  baptizati,  dummodo  ritu  catholico,  conferatur.  Contra, 
si  ritus  immutetur,  eo  manifesto  consilio  ut  alius  inducatur  ab 
Ecclesia  non  receptus,  utque  id  repellatur  quod  facit  Ecclesia  et 
quod  ex  institutione  Christi  ad  naturam  attinet  sacramenti,  tunc 
palam  est,  non  solum  necessariam  Sacramento  intentionem  deesse 
sed  intentionem  immo  haberi  Sacramento  adversam  et  repugnan- 
tem.” 

2  See  the  Answer  of  the  Archbishops  of  England  to  the  Apostolic 
Letters  of  Pope  Leo  XIII .  on  English  Ordinations — Addressed  to  the 


252  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

It  is,  however,  a  fact  of  some  interest  that  shortly  after 
the  issue  of  this  Bull,  and  of  a  letter  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
bishops  in  England  supporting  it  in  a  somewhat  over- 
dogmatic  tone,  there  was  discovered  in  a  manuscript  on 
Mount  Athos  a  collection  of  prayers  used  by  Serapion, 
Bishop  of  Thmuis,  in  Egypt,  during  the  fourth  century.1 
There  is  no  doubt  about  the  genuineness  or  the  adequacy 
of  this  document,  and  the  prayer  used  at  the  ordination 
of  a  priest  contains  no  reference  either  to  the  priesthood 
or  to  the  power  of  sacrificing.  The  contention  of  the  papal 
Bull  had  been  sufficiently  answered  already,  but  this  new 
discovery  is  most  illuminating. 

The  prayer  runs  as  follows : 

“  We  stretch  forth  the  hand,  0  Lord  God  of  the 
heavens,  Father  of  thy  only-begotten,  upon  this  man, 
and  beseech  thee  that  the  Spirit  of  truth  may  come 
to  him.  Give  him  the  grace  of  prudence  and  know¬ 
ledge  and  a  good  heart.  Let  a  divine  Spirit  come  to  be 
in  him  that  he  may  be  able  to  be  a  steward  of  thy  people 
and  an  ambassador  of  thy  divine  oracles,  and  to  recon¬ 
cile  thy  people  to  thee  the  uncreated  God.  Thou  who 
didst  give  of  the  Spirit  of  Moses  upon  the  chosen  ones, 
even  Holy  Spirit,  give  a  portion  of  Holy  Spirit  also  to 
this  man,  from  the  Spirit  of  thy  only-begotten,  for 
the  grace  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  and  right  faith, 
that  he  may  be  able  to  serve  thee  in  a  clean  conscience, 
through  thy  only-begotten  Jesus  Christ,  through  whom 
to  Thee  is  the  glory  and  the  dominion  in  Holy  Spirit 
both  now  and  for  all  the  ages  of  the  ages.  Amen.”2 

The  theory  put  forward  by  the  Bull  was  quite  novel. 
It  was  most  arbitrary.  It  seemed  as  if  a  somewhat  cursory 


Whole  Body  of  Bishops  of  the  Catholic  Church.  London:  Longmans, 
Green  and  Co.,  1897  (first  published  in  Latin).  There  was  a  new 
edition  of  it  published  in  1912,  with  the  name  of  John  Wordsworth, 
late  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  attached. 

1  These  prayers  were  first  published  by  Dr.  G.  Wobbermin  in 
Texte  und  Untersuchungen  (New  Series,  vol.  ii.,  part  3 h,  Leipzig, 
1899),  and  they  have  been  edited  by  Mr.  Brightman  in  the  Journal 
of  Theological  Studies,  vol.  i.,  1899-1900,  pp.  88  and  247.  There  is  an 
English  translation,  published  by  Bishop  John  Wordsworth,  under 
the  title  of  Bishop  Serapion’s  Prayer-Book  (S.P.C.K.,  1910). 

2  See  Wordsworth,  Bishop  Serapion' s  Prayer-Book,  pp.  50-53,  73. 


ANGLICAN  ORDERS 


253 

examination  had  been  made  of  existing  forms,  and  a  theory 
devised  which  might  serve  for  the  purpose.  It  was  hardly 
sincere,  and  as  a  result  unfortunate.  It  has  seldom  hap¬ 
pened  that  the  utterance  of  a  Pope  or  any  other  contro¬ 
versialist  has  been  so  decisively  proved  to  be  wrong  by  future 
discoveries  as  that  of  Leo  XIII. 

The  study  of  the  literature  of  this  controversy  is  most 
instructive  from  many  points  of  view.  There  is  only  one 
more  point  that  I  will  touch  on  in  conclusion.  The  con¬ 
demnation  of  Anglican  Orders  was  probably  largely  dictated 
by  political  motives.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy  in  England  had  worked  hard  to  secure 
it,  that  they  thought  that  the  result  would  be  to  create 
confusion  and  dismay  in  the  English  Church,  and  that  they 
had  made  preparations  for  the  influx  of  a  large  number  of 
converts.  They  were  disappointed.  The  only  result  was 
to  confirm  the  great  body  of  English  Churchmen  in  loyal 
attachment  to  their  Church.  Although  they  might  differ 
among  themselves  on  many  points,  one  thing  on  which  they 
were  absolutely  assured  was  that  they  were  validly  and 
properly  ordained.  Some  of  them  were  anxious — it  may  be 
over-anxious — for  greater  approximation  to  the  Roman 
Church,  but  it  was  on  the  basis  of  their  recognition  as  a  true 
branch  of  Christ’s  Church.  Now,  does  not  this  incident 
give  a  lesson  and  a  warning  to  us  now  ?  The  question  before 
us  at  the  moment  is  the  condition  on  which  reunion  may  be 
possible  with  Nonconformists.  They  maintain,  as  we  did 
then,  that  they  are  an  integral  portion  of  Christ’s  Church. 
They  maintain,  as  we  did,  that  they  truly  in  all  their  minis¬ 
trations  have  the  gift  of  God’s  Holy  Spirit.  They  main¬ 
tain,  as  we  did,  that  they  have  a  valid  commission  for  the 
ministry  that  they  exercise.  They  maintain  that  to  them, 
as  to  us,  God  gives  His  grace  through  the  Sacraments. 
Are  we  going  to  copy  the  methods  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ? 
Are  we  going  to  judge  their  Orders,  not  by  the  objective  stan¬ 
dard  of  Holy  Scripture,  but  by  the  rules  of  our  own  Church, 
as  Rome  did  us  ?  Are  we  going  to  say:  You  have  no  valid 
Sacraments,  no  valid  Orders— -come  over  to  us  and  get  them  ? 
If  we  do  we  shall  be  just  as  narrow,  just  as  arrogant,  just  as 
foolish  as  the  Church  of  Rome. 


254  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

At  present,  as  the  result  of  our  investigations  so  far,  I 
would  put  it  to  you  on  the  authority  of  Scripture  that  what 
is  necessary  for  a  valid  ordination  is  laying  on  of  hands  with 
prayer,  that  no  other  form  or  ceremony  can  be  considered 
essential,  and  that  no  particular  form  is  required  either  by 
Scripture  or  the  voice  of  the  Church,  and  further,  as  regards 
intention,  all  that  is  requisite  is  that  we  should  intend  to 
do,  and  should  make  it  clear  by  our  actions  and  prayers  that 
we  intend,  just  what  the  Apostles  did  when  they  ordained. 

Ill 

But  a  further  question  arises — the  minister  of  ordination. 
Who  is  competent  to  ordain  ? 

The  rule  of  the  Church  has  been,  from  an  early  time,  that 
the  proper  minister  of  ordination  is  the  bishop.  The  origin 
of  that  rule,  so  far  as  we  can  trace  it,  has  already  been  dis¬ 
cussed,  and  its  authority  defined.1  It  has  not  the  authority 
of  our  Lord,  nor  of  the  Apostolic  Church.  We  have  no 
certain  evidence  of  its  prevalence  in  the  second  century, 
and  some  information  never  quite  demonstrative  might 
suggest  that  at  one  time  a  different  custom  had  prevailed. 
But  the  rule  certainly  prevailed  in  the  third  century;  in 
the  fourth  it  received  full  conciliar  authority,  and  it  be¬ 
came  a  recognized  part  of  the  canon  law  of  the  East  and 
West  alike.  It  is  generally  maintained  that  without  a 
bishop  there  is  no  valid  ordination,  and  consequently  that 
no  Sacrament  but  Baptism  can  be  validly  celebrated.  A 
bishop  is  not  only  the  proper,  but  the  necessary  minister 
of  ordination. 

The  Church  of  England,  unlike  most  other  of  the  Reformed 
Churches,  has  preserved  the  rule  of  Episcopal  ordination, 
but  there  has  been  some  variation  in  its  teaching  as  to  the 
necessity.2  Previous  to  the  year  1660,  on  certain  occasions 

1  See  above,  p.  99. 

2  The  different  Ordinals  are  compared  in  The  English  Rite,  by  F.  E. 
Brightman,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  930,  931.  In  1550  and  1552  the  Preface  is: 
“  And  therefore  to  the  intent  these  orders  should  be  continued, 
and  reuerently  used,  and  estemed,  in  this  Churche  of  Englande,  it  is 
requisite,  that  no  man  (not  beeynge  at  this  present,  Bisshoppe,  Priest, 
nor  Deacon)  shall  execute  any  of  thelm,  excepte  he  bee  called,  tried, 


EPISCOPAL  ORDINATION 


255 

those  who  were  not  in  Episcopal  Orders  but  had  been  ordained 
in  a  Reformed  Church,  were  admitted  to  benefices.  This 
might  be  held  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  Article,* 1  and  was 
not  perhaps  especially  forbidden  in  the  Ordinal.  In  the 
Prayer  Book  of  1661,  as  a  result  of  the  reaction  against  the 
Commonwealth,  and  as  part  of  the  policy  which  deprived 
those  in  Presbyterian  Orders  in  English  benefices,  it  was 
definitely  stated  that  none  might  hold  office  in  the  Church 
of  England  unless  he  had  received  Episcopal  ordination 
or  consecration.  This  has  been  the  rule  since,  although 
it  has  been  widely  held  that  the  Church  does  not  desire  to 
condemn  the  Orders  of  other  religious  bodies,  and  that  this 
is  a  rule  only  for  itself. 

What  weight  must  we  attach  to  the  rule  of  the  necessity 
of  Episcopal  Orders  ?  Before  answering  this  question  we 
must  investigate  more  fully  the  meaning  of  valid  Orders  and 
the  nature  of  a  Sacrament .  I  do  not  think  that  we  can  do 
better  than  start  with  the  definition  given  by  Cardinal 
Vaughan  and  the  Roman  Catholic  bishops  of  this  country 
in  the  letter  addressed  to  the  English  archbishops  men¬ 
tioned  above. 

There  are  two  relevant  passages.  The  first  concerns  the 
priesthood : 

examined,  and  admitted,  accordyng  to  the  forme  hereafter  folowyng.” 
The  later  part  of  this  is  modified  in  1661  as  follows:  “ No  man  shall 
be  accounted  or  taken  to  be  a  lawfull  Bishop,  Priest,  or  Deacon  in 
the  Church  of  England,  or  suffered  to  execute  any  of  the  said  func¬ 
tions,  except  he  be  called,  tryed,  examined,  and  admitted  thereunto, 
according  to  the  Form  hereafter  following,  or  hath  had  formerly 
Episcopall  Consecration  or  Ordination.” 

1  Article  XXIII.,  Of  Ministering  in  the  Congregation  :  “  It  is  not 
lawful  for  any  man  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of  publick  preaching, 
or  ministering  the  Sacraments  in  the  Congregation,  before  he  be 
lawfully  called,  and  sent  to  execute  the  same.  And  those  we  ought 
to  judge  lawfully  called  and  sent,  which  be  chosen  and  called  to  this 
work  by  men  who  have  publick  authority  given  unto  them  in  the 
Congregation,  to  call  and  send  Ministers  into  the  Lord’s  vineyard.” 
This  Article  comes  ultimately  from  the  Confession  of  Augsburg.  In 
its  language  it  is  ambiguous.  It  is  capable  of  interpretation  in  two 
ways  and  was,  no  doubt,  so  interpreted  from  the  first.  It  might 
be  held  to  mean  that  as,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  Church,  none 
but  bishops  had  such  authority,  it  really  implied  Episcopal  consecra¬ 
tion  ;  or  it  might  be  held  to  mean  that  anyone  was  lawfully  a  minister 
who  had  been  so  appointed  and  ordained  by  those  who  had  such 
authority  in  any  particular  community.  In  this  case  it  would  cover 
Presbyterian  ordination. 


256  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

“  Priest  and  Sacrifice  are  correlative  terms — with  us, 
at  all  events,  and,  indeed,  with  all  nations,  except  in 
so  far  as  your  own  Communion  may  be  an  exception. 
A  priest  is  one  who  offers  sacrifice;  and  as  is  the  sacri¬ 
fice  so  is  the  priest.  Since,  then,  our  sacrifice  is  the 
Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  our  priest  is  one  appointed  and  em¬ 
powered  to  offer  up  that  sacrifice;  one,  therefore,  who 
has  received  from  God  the  power,  by  means  of  the  words 
of  consecration,  to  cause  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ 
to  become  present  under  the  appearances  of  bread  and 
wine,  and  to  offer  them  up  sacrificially.  ...  He  is  a 
priest  solely  because  he  has  the  office  and  power  of 
effecting  the  Real  Objective  Presence  on  the  Altar  of  the 
true  Body  and  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  thereby  offer¬ 
ing  Him  up  in  sacrifice.”1 

The  second  passage  concerns  the  requirements  for  a  valid 
ordination : 

“For  a  valid  ordination  a  valid  form  (or  rite)  and  a 
proper  intention  are  required. 

“  First,  then,  as  regards  the  form  or  rite.  It  is  the 
teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  our  Lord,  having 
established  the  Christian  priesthood,  determined  that  it 
should  be  perpetuated  through  the  ages  by  an  Apostolic 
Succession,  those  who  received  the  gift  directly  from 
His  hands  transmitting  it  to  the  next  generation,  and 
so  to  the  end ;  with  the  result  that  no  man  can  be  truly 
deemed  to  possess  the  priesthood  or  the  episcopate 
who  has  not  received  it  in  this  manner  through  Apos¬ 
tolic  Succession.  It  is  likewise  the  teaching  of  the 
Catholic  Church  that  the  bishop,  in  thus  transmitting 
his  gift  to  others,  must  use  a  rite  instituted  by  our  Lord 
Himself.  He  must  do  this,  because  none  but  our  Lord 
could  annex  to  a  sacramental  rite  the  power  of  communi¬ 
cating  gifts  so  stupendous,  as  it  was  His  good  pleasure 
to  institute  each  one  of  the  Sacraments  Himself,  during 
His  earthly  life,  by  assigning  to  each  the  rite  which, 
as  a  condition  of  valid  administration,  must  always  be 
observed.  And  as  our  knowledge  of  what  our  Lord 

1  Vindication  of  the  Bull  **  Apostolicae  Curae,”  pp.  26,  27. 


THE  CHARACTER 


257 

instituted  and  prescribed  in  regard  to  the  Sacrament 
is  derived  from  the  unfailing  tradition  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  it  is  this  we  must  consult  if  we  wish  to  learn 
what  are  the  necessary  elements  of  a  valid  ordination 
rite.”1 

The  first  question  that  these  statements  arouse  concerns 
the  nature  of  a  Sacrament  in  the  Christian  Church.  The 
developed  medieval  and  Roman  doctrine  is  that  in  ordina¬ 
tion  a  certain  character  is  given  to  the  person  ordained  which 
enables  him  to  do  certain  things.  As  it  is  sometimes  ex¬ 
pressed,  the  character  given  to  a  priest  gives  him  the  power 
“  to  make  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.”  The  character 
of  a  bishop  is  the  power  of  giving  to  others  this  power  of 
making  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  This  character  is 
indelible  and  always  remains  to  a  man  even  if  he  be  an  un¬ 
believer  or  a  heretic,  provided  he  makes  use  of  the  correct 
matter  and  form.2 

I  do  not  believe  this  to  be  the  conception  intended  by  the 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament,  nor  that  it  was  held  in  the 
primitive  Church.  Let  me  remind  you  of  the  result  of  our 
historical  investigations.  Before  the  time  of  .St.  Augustine 
there  is  no  trace  of  this  character  indelebilis.  A  quite  different 
theory  prevailed.  The  power  of  a  bishop  or  presbyter 
depended  upon  the  Church.  If  the  people  separated  from 
a  bishop  he  ceased  to  be  a  bishop ;  if  he  became  a  heretic  or 
a  schismatic  he  ceased  to  be  able  to  confer  Orders  or  conse¬ 
crate  the  Eucharist.  St.  Augustine,  in  order  to  justify 
the  custom  of  the  African  Church,  which  in  the  cause  of 
unity  and  charity,  had  ceased  to  rebaptize  or  reordain 
heretics  when  they  returned  to  the  Church,  modified  this 
theory.  He  held  that  just  as  a  man  who  is  baptized  does 
not  lose  the  effect  of  his  baptism  if  he  become  a  heretic,  and 
therefore  need  not  be  rebaptized,  so  it  is  with  ordination. 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  30,  31. 

2  On  the  character  see  Summa  Theologica,  Pars  III.,  Quaestio 
LXIII.,  “  De  effectu  Sacramentonim,  qui  est  Character,”  Articulus 
I.  :  “  Cum  Christi  fideles  per  sacramenta  ad  aliquid  divinum  ad  Dei 
cultum  spectans  deputentur,  oportet  illos  per  sacramenta  aliquo 
spirituali  charactere  inrigniri.”  Articulus  V.:  “Cum  character  sit 
quaedam  in  fidelibus  sacramentalis  participatio  sacerdotii  Christi, 
necesse  est  eum  indelebiliter  animae  inesse.” 


17 


258  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

But  although  the  result  of  this  teaching  was  to  create  the 
medieval  theory  of  the  ministry,  it  was  not  the  opinion  of 
St.  Augustine  himself  that  the  essence  of  a  Sacrament  lay 
in  the  power  of  the  bishop  or  priest.  He  held  that  the 
Sacraments  were  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church,  and  there¬ 
fore  of  Christ.  They  were  efficacious  because  they  were 
celebrated  within  the  Church,  and  because  it  was  not  really 
the  bishop  or  priest  who  performed  the  Sacrament,  but  Christ 
on  behalf  of  His  Church.  It  was  Christ  who  baptized.  It 
was  Christ  who  ordained.  It  was  Christ  who  consecrated 
the  Eucharist.1 

I  would  suggest  to  you  that  this  is  the  true  theory  of 
Sacraments.  They  are  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church, 
performed  through  the  ministers  of  the  Church  appointed 
for  that  purpose.  In  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  Church 
God,  through  Christ,  gives  us  His  Holy  Spirit  and  the 
spiritual  gifts  for  which  we  pray.  It  is  not  the  bishop  who 
gives  the  Holy  Ghost  in  confirmation  or  ordination,  but 
God  who,  through  Christ,  sends  His  Holy  Spirit  in  answer 
to  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  offered  up  through  their 
duly  appointed  minister.  It  is  not  the  priest  who  trans¬ 
forms  the  bread  and  wine  into  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ, 
but  our  Lord  who,  through  His  Holy  Spirit,  gives  us  the 
spiritual  food  of  His  Body  and  Blood  in  answer  to  the 
prayers  of  the  Church  offered  up  in  the  church  by  a  duly 
appointed  minister  of  the  Church. 

I  think  a  study  of  the  early  liturgies  would  support  this. 
Take,  for  instance,  Absolution.  At  the  present  time  the 
Church  of  England,  following  medieval  custom,  uses  a  de¬ 
claratory  form.  Such  a  form  was  unknown  in  the  West 
until,  I  think,  the  twelfth  century,  or  in  the  East  until  the 
sixteenth.  In  the  Primitive  Church  Absolution  was  always 
in  the  form  of  a  prayer.  The  penitent  who  made  public 
confession  of  his  sins  and  had  submitted  to  the  discipline 
imposed  upon  him,  was  readmitted  to  the  communion  of 
the  Church  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  of  the  bishop,  who 
offered  prayers  that  he  might  be  absolved  from  his  sins. 
The  Church  exercised  its  authority  through  its  ministers 
by  restoring  the  penitent  to  communion.  Such  a  service 

1  See  above,  p.  156. 


LITURGICAL  FORMS 


259 


may  be  seen,  for  example,  in  the  Gelasian  Sacramentary, 
the  oldest  service-book  of  the  Western  Church  that  has  been 
preserved.1  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  exercise  of  discipline 
might  be  promoted  and  ecclesiastical  strife  (which  largely 
arises  from  misunderstandings)  might  be  allayed  if — at  any 
rate,  for  the  mission  field — a  service  for  the  reconciliation  of 
penitents  might  be  restored  on  this  ancient  model. 

Other  instances  might  be  quoted.  While  in  the  Western 
Church  the  form  of  Baptism  is,  “I  baptize  thee,”  in  the 
Eastern  Church  it  is  “  So  and  so  is  baptized,”  a  form  in¬ 
tended  to  make  it  clear  that  the  minister  is  only  the  instru¬ 
ment  through  whom  the  Sacrament  is  performed,  and  that 
it  is  not  performed  by  any  power  inherent  in  him.  If  you 
desire  an  instance  of  the  manner  in  which  the  whole  congrega¬ 
tion  may  be  associated  with  the  minister  in  the  Eucharist, 
you  may  find  it  in  the  service  of  the  Coptic  Church,2  where, 
throughout  the  prayer  of  consecration,  the  people  respond, 
thus  associating  themselves  with  the  ministerial  action. 
It  is  often  held  also  that  the  great  defect  of  the  Order 
of  the  English  Church,  as  of  the  Roman  Church,  is  the 
absence  of  a  proper  Epiclesis  in  the  liturgy.  Moreover, 
whatever  real  defects  there  may  be  in  our  Ordination  Service 

1  See  The  Gelasian  Sacr anientary,  edited  by  Wilson,  p.  314.  The 
following  are  the  Exhortation  and  prayers : 

“  Deum  omnipotentem  ac  misericordem,  qui  non  vult  mortem 
peccatorum,  sed  ut  convertantur  et  vivant,  fratres  carissimi,  suplices 
deprecemur,  ut  converso  ad  viam  rectam  famulo  suo  Illo,  miseri- 
cordiae  suae  veniam  propitiatus  indulgeat :  et  si  quae  sunt  culparum 
suarum  omnium  vulnera,  quae  post  sacri  lavacri  unda(m)  contraxit,  ita 
in  hac  publica  confessione  delicta  sanentur,  ut  nulla  in  eum  ultra 
cicatricum  signa  remaneant.  Per  Dominum  nostrum.” 

“  Deus,  justorum  gloria,  misericordia  peccatorum,  da  huic  famulo 
tuo  I  Hi  plenam  indulgentiae  veniam,  et  penitentiae  loco  exoratus 
indulge ;  ut  qui  praeterita  peccata  deplorat,  futura  mala  non  sentiat, 
neque  jam  ulterius  lugenda  committat.  Dimitte  ei,  Domine,  omnia 
crimina,  et  in  semitas  eum  justitiae  placatus  reinstaura,  ut  securus 
mereatur  deinceps  inter  tuos  bene  meritos  currere  et  ad  pacis  aeternae 
praemia  pervenire.  Per  Dominum  nostrum  Jesum  Christum.” 

“  Domine  Deus  Omnipotens  sempiterne,  qui  peccatorum  indul- 
gentiam  in  confessione  celeri  posuisti,  succurre  lapsis,  miserere 
confessis,  ut  quos  delictorum  catena  constringit,  miseratio  tuae 
pietatis  absolvat.  Per  Dominum.” 

This  is  discussed  by  the  late  Dr.  Reichel,  Bishop  of  Meath,  in  The 
History  and  Claims  of  the  Confessional — A  Sermon  preached  before 
the  University  of  Cambridge  (Dublin:  Hodges,  Figgis  and  Co.,  1884). 
An  appendix  contains  a  large  number  of  forms  of  Absolution. 

2  See  Brightman,  Liturgies  Eastern  and  Western,  pp.  179,  180. 


260  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 


arise  from  the  fact  that,  influenced  by  medieval  tradition, 
there  is  a  tendency  to  make  the  necessary  part  of  our 
ordination  rite  lie  in  the  declaratory  words  spoken  by  the 
bishop  in  the  laying  on  of  hands  and  not  in  the  prayers  that 
accompany  the  rite. 

Now,  all  these  instances  are  not  mere  antiquarianism :  they 
are  evidence  that  the  services  of  the  Church  were  at  the 
beginning  based  upon  the  Scriptural  rite  in  each  case,  that 
there  was  no  undue  tendency  to  exalt  the  minister,  and  that 
it  was  on  the  prayers  of  the  Church  that  emphasis  was  laid. 
The  Medieval  Church,  by  exalting  the  minister  and  by  the 
mechanical  theory  which  it  evolved,  obliterated  that,  and 
we  should  return  to  the  more  primitive  theory. 

I  would  further  illustrate  what  I  have  said  by  extracts 
from  the  writings  of  a  well-known  Russian  theologian — 
Khomiakoff — which  are  of  value  as  giving  an  Eastern  point 
of  view: 

“  Believing  in  the  Church  we,  together  with  her, 
confess  seven  Sacraments — namely,  Baptism,  the 
Eucharist,  Laying  on  of  Hands,  Confirmation,  with 
Chrism,  Marriage,  Penance,  and  Anointing  the  Sick. 
There  are  also  many  other  Sacraments;  for  every  work 
which  is  done  in  faith,  love,  and  hope  is  suggested  to 
man  by  the  Spirit  of  God  and  invites  the  unseen  grace 
of  God.  But  the  seven  Sacraments  are,  in  reality,  not 
accomplished  by  any  single  individual  who  is  worthy  of 
the  mercy  of  God,  but  by  the  whole  Church  in  the  person 
of  an  individual,  even  though  he  be  unworthy.”1 

And  again  of  ordination : 

“  The  Sacrament  gives  to  him  who  receives  it  this 
great  significance,  that  even  if  he  be  unworthy,  yet  in 
performing  his  Sacramental  service,  his  action  neces¬ 
sarily  proceeds  not  from  himself,  but  from  the  whole 
Church — that  is,  from  Christ  living  within  her.”2 

There  are  these  two  theories  about  Sacraments,  two 
methods  of  teaching  about  them.  The  one  was  developed 

1  See  Birkbeck,  Russia  and  the  English  Church,  vol.  i.,  p.  20b. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  209. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 


261 


in  the  Medieval  Church  and  had  its  origin  in  certain  teach¬ 
ing  of  St.  Augustine.  It  is  the  dominant  theory  of  the 
Roman  Church,  and  has  been  adopted  by  a  section  of  the 
Anglican.  It  exalts  the  minister.  It  ascribes  the  efficacy 
of  the  Sacrament  to  a  definite  power  with  which  he  has  been 
endowed,  and  on  that  basis  was  built  up  a  consistent  but 
mechanical  and,  in  some  of  its  presentations,  almost  magical 
theology. 

The  other  looks  upon  the  bishop  or  priest  as  the  appointed 
minister  of  the  Church.  His  acts  are  efficacious  because 
they  are  the  act  of  the  Church,  and  because  Christ  is  in  His 
Church.  It  is  Christ  wdio  performs  the  Sacrament.  So 
definitely  was  this  the  theory  of  the  Early  Church  that  it 
was  held  that,  if  a  bishop  was  not  acting  in  the  Church  and 
on  behalf  of  the  Church,  his  acts  were  ineffective  and  invalid ; 
the  Sacrament  that  he  performed  was  no  Sacrament.  This 
theory  was  reflected  in  the  liturgy,  it  has  left  its  trace  in 
medieval  theology,  it  was  the  theory  which  St.  Augustine 
himself  held. 

The  former  theory  is  hard,  mechanical,  unreal;  the  other 
is  living  and  true,  and  is,  I  believe,  what  we  are  intended 
to  hold  in  the  Church  of  England;  for  every  definite  trace 
of  the  medieval  theory  has  been  eliminated  from  the  Prayer- 
Book.  It  is  a  theory  which,  combined  with  a  broader  and 
more  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  Church,  will  form  a  rational 
basis  for  reunion. 


IV 

The  second  point  in  reference  to  the  theory  of  Orders 
that  must  be  considered  is  the  so-called  doctrine  of  Apos¬ 
tolic  Succession.  This  is  stated  with  great  definiteness  by 
the  English  Roman  Catholic  bishops: 

“  Our  Lord,  having  established  the  Christian  priest¬ 
hood,  determined  that  it  should  be  perpetuated  through 
the  ages  by  an  Apostolical  Succession,  those  who  re¬ 
ceived  the  gift  directly  from  His  hands  transmitting  it 
to  others,  who  in  turn,  should  transmit  it  to  the  next 
generation,  and  so  to  the  end;  with  the  result  that  no 
man  can  be  truly  deemed  to  possess  the  priesthood  or 


262  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 


the  episcopate  who  has  not  received  it  in  this  manner 
through  the  Apostolical  Succession.”1 

The  same  doctrine  is  held  by  some  members  of  the  Church 
of  England,  and  has  thus  been  recently  restated  by  Bishop 
Gore: 

“  I  believe  that  there  is  no  theory  of  the  grounds 
of  a  valid  ministry  which  can  at  present  enter  into  any 
even  plausible  rivalry  with  the  Catholic  theory  of 
Apostolic  Succession,  except  the  theory  which  lies  deep 
in  the  heart  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  that  any 
group  or  assembly  of  Christian  men  or  women  who  are 
dissatisfied  with  their  existing  Church  can,  for  them¬ 
selves,  constitute  their  ministry,  and  of  themselves  give 
it  its  power  and  authority.”2 

The  results  of  this  doctrine  are  given  us  very  emphatically 
by  Khomiakoff : 

“  If  Ordination  ceased,  all  the  Sacraments  except 
Baptism  would  also  cease;  and  the  human  race  would 
be  torn  away  from  grace:  for  the  Church  itself  would 
then  bear  witness  that  Christ  had  departed  from  her.”3 

That,  then,  is  the  doctrine  as  it  is  taught.  Now,  with 
regard  to  that,  I  would  put  before  you  the  following  ob¬ 
servations. 

In  the  first  place,  how  extraordinarily  mechanical  a 
theory  it  is !  The  giving  of  God’s  grace  to  mankind  or,  at 
any  rate,  the  giving  of  Sacramental  grace,  is  made  to  depend 
upon  certain  ceremonies  being  correctly  performed  on 
certain  persons.  The  theory  may  be  held  with  different 
degrees  of  strictness.  According  to  the  Roman  theory  it 
depends  upon  the  exact  form  of  the  prayer  that  is  offered. 
The  Anglican  (and  probably  also  the  Eastern)  theory  might 
not  be  so  rigid,  but  still  it  makes  spiritual  gifts  depend  upon 
what  is  purely  formal  and  mechanical.  It  speaks  of  grace 
having  come  down  from  the  Apostles  as  it  were  by  a  golden 
channel.  And  when  we  ask  for  the  authority  for  this  theory 

1  Vindication ,  p.  26  (quoted  in  full  above). 

2  See  the  Church  Times  of  March  19,  1920. 

3  Birkbeck,  op.  cit.,  p.  209. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 


263 

it  is  difficult  to  discover  what  it  is.  There  is  certainly  nothing 
in  the  New  Testament  or  in  the  teaching  of  the  Early  Church 
to  justify  it. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  great  advantage  of  the 
theory  is  that  it  gives  us  security.  I  fail  to  find  any  justifica¬ 
tion  for  that  statement.  As  regards,  perhaps,  100,000,000 
of  Protestant  Christians  the  only  security  that  it  provides 
is  that  they  certainly  have  no  regular  Orders  or  Sacraments. 
As  regards  the  Swedish  Church,  which  is  believed  to  have  the 
Apostolical  Succession,  there  is  still  doubt,  for  some  hold  that 
the  absence  of  a  diaconate  invalidates  their  Orders,  and  some 
that  the  absence  of  episcopal  confirmation  has  the  same 
effect.  It  might  have  been  thought  that  the  Orders  of  the 
Eastern  Church  were  free  from  reproach,  but,  if  according 
to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Pope  Eugenius  IV.,  the  Por- 
rectio  Instrumentorum  is  a  necessary  condition  of  a  valid 
ordination,  they  have  no  correct  Orders.  We  Anglicans  are 
quite  convinced  (largely  on  quite  different  grounds)  that  our 
Orders  are  valid,  but  when  we  begin  to  read  arguments 
about  them  we  find  ourselves  in  a  discussion  that  has  no 
reality  about  it  at  all.  According  to  one  we  have  no  proper 
sacraments  because  we  do  not  intend  to  do  things  of  which 
the  Early  Church  had  no  knowledge,  or  because  there  are 
alleged  defects  in  the  Edwardine  Ordinal,  or  because  there 
is  no  proper  prayer  at  the  ordination  of  a  deacon,  or  because 
we  do  not  really  consider  ordination  a  Sacrament.  It  might 
be  thought  that  Roman  Orders  and  Sacraments  were  above 
reproach,  but  there  have  been  distinguished  liturgiologists 
who  have  held  that  the  Epiclesis  is  essential  to  a  proper 
consecration  of  the  Eucharist,  and  as  the  Roman  Mass  has  no 
proper  Epiclesis  that  Sacrament  may  be  looked  upon  as  at 
least  doubtful.  As  regards  Orders  the  Pope  claims  the  right 
to  decide  what  are  the  conditions  of  their  validity,  but  if 
two  of  them  have  made  such  blunders  as  Eugenius  IV.  in 
his  letter  to  the  Armenians  and  Leo  XIII.  when  he  con¬ 
demned  Anglican  Orders,  we  cannot  think  much  of  their 
authority,  and  if  they  are  right  in  their  opinions  it  is  prob¬ 
able  that  all  early  forms  of  ordination  were  invalid  and 
Orders  in  the  Christian  Church  have  long  ceased.  More¬ 
over,  it  is  quite  a  probable  opinion  that  for  a  time  in  the 


264  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

Christian  Church  there  were  no  proper  bishops,  and  there¬ 
fore  all  ordinations  at  that  time  were  invalid  according  to 
later  theory.  This  defect  is  got  over,  of  course,  in  various 
ways,  but  where  is  the  security  ? 

The  fact  is  that,  in  dealing  with  these  things  in  this  way, 
we  are  dealing  with  a  science  which  is  no  science — with  a 
theology  which  has  none  but  arbitrary  principles.  Different 
theologians  made  different  rules,  but  behind  them  all  there 
is  no  reason  or  real  authority. 

Then,  secondly,  this  theory  of  the  Apostolical  Succession  is, 
I  should  hold,  quite  untrue  to  fact.  According  to  the  Roman 
theory  the  English  Church  is  entirely  without  sacramental 
grace.  According  to  the  Anglo-Catholic  theory  no  non- 
episcopal  Church  has  such  grace  or,  as  it  is  more  customary 
now  to  say,  it  has  not  got  it  in  any  regular  or  secure  way. 
According  to  Khomiakoff,  who  is,  in  many  ways,  a  liberal- 
minded  theologian,  Christ  is  not  present  when  there  are  no 
bishops.  The  facts  prove  that  these  statements  are  untrue. 
I  have  always  defended  the  Eastern  Church  in  all  its  branches 
from  the  unworthy  and  untrue  condemnation  in  which  some 
Roman  and  Protestant  controversialists  indulge.  I  know 
well  how  much  real  rich  religious  life  and  devoted  piety  and 
love  of  Christ  there  is  in  the  Roman  Church.  The  habit  of 
undue  self-depreciation  which  prevails  in  some  sections  of  the 
English  Church  seems  to  me  as  foolish  as  it  is  disloyal,  but 
I  am  convinced  that  in  Nonconformist  churches  there  is 
equal  evidence  of  true  faith  in  Christ.  They  are  no  whit 
behind  in  personal  piety,  in  theological  learning  or  mis¬ 
sionary  zeal.  Their  ministers  shew  equal  signs  of  God’s 
Spirit,  and  their  people  are  the  recipients  of  divine  grace. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  now  for  English  divines,  in  the 
same  breath  almost  in  which  they  deny  Sacraments  and 
Orders  to  the  Nonconformists,  to  indulge  in  eulogies  of  the 
many  signs  that  they  exhibit  of  the  gifts  of  God’s  Spirit. 
“  I  desire  to  acknowledge  as  fully  and  truly  as  possible  the 
abundant  evidences  of  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the 
Free  Churches,”1  says  Bishop  Gore.  It  is  well  that  it  should 
be  so,  for  a  recognition  of  fact  will  gradually  modify,  as  it  is 
modifying,  untenable  doctrine.  But  surely  if  this  be  so  the 

1  Church  Times,  March  19,  1920. 


APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 


265 

natural  deduction  that  people  will  make  is  that  valid  Sacra¬ 
ments  and  Orders  make  little  or  no  difference,  and  that  it 
really  does  not  matter  if  we  are  without  them. 

The  real  facts  I  believe  to  be  quite  different.  They  are 
that  the  Nonconformists  exhibit  such  signs  of  the  Spirit 
because  they  are  a  branch  (although,  like  us  and  all  other 
branches  of  Christendom,  a  separated  and  maimed  branch) 
of  Christ’s  Church,  and  because  they  have  the  Sacraments  of 
Christ  and  an  Apostolic  ministry.  “  The  multitudes  of 
their  converts  really  proves  the  presence  in  their  missionaries 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  and  the  reality  of  their  member¬ 
ship  in  the  one  Church  of  Christ.  If  they  were  not  in  the 
Vine,  they  could  not  bring  forth  abundant  fruit.”1  So 
writes  Dr.  Goudge  with  great  truth.  And  as  regards  their 
Sacraments  they  have  valid  Sacraments  because  they  obey 
Christ’s  commands  and  intend  to  do  what  Christ  bade  them. 
They  receive  the  Holy  Spirit  in  their  ordinations  because 
they  obey  the  Apostolic  rite  of  laying  on  of  hands  with 
prayer,  and  are  a  part  of  Christ’s  Church.  Their  Sacra¬ 
ments  are  imperfect,  their  Orders  are  maimed  because  of  the 
broken  unity  of  Christ’s  Church,  but  so  also  are  ours,  and  so 
also  are  those  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches.  That  we 
shall  consider  shortly.  What  I  am  concerned  at  present  to 
maintain  is  that  it  is  not  possible  to  make  any  such  distinc¬ 
tion  as  is  made  between  our  Orders  and  theirs  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  without  the  Apostolic  Succession. 

And  then,  thirdly,  if  our  study  of  the  teaching  of  the 
Early  Church  be  correct,  and  I  have  reason  to  think  that  it 
is  so,  this  theory  of  the  Apostolical  Succession  is  untrue 
to  Church  history.  It  was  not  the  theory  held  in  the  Early 
Church.  It  was  not  the  theory  held  by  St.  Augustine. 
The  Early  Church  quite  definitely  held  that  the  bishops  were 
the  successors  of  the  Apostles,  but  there  is  no  evidence  at  all 
to  shew  that  it  considered  that  they  held  that  position  because 
they  had  received  grace  by  transmission  from  the  Apostles. 
They  were  the  successors  of  the  Apostles  because  they  had 
been  appointed  by  the  Church  to  perform  those  functions 
which  the  Apostles  had  performed. 

1  The  Catholic  Party  and  the  Nonconformists,  by  H.  L.  Goudge, 
D.D.,  Canon  of  Ely,  p.  11. 


266  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 


And  this,  I  believe,  has  been  the  regular  teaching  of  the 
Church.  Let  me  ask  you  to  turn  to  that  section  of  the 
supplement  of  the  Summa  Theologica  which  is  devoted  to  the 
Sacrament  of  Orders.  Occasionally,  but  not  often,  in  the 
Summa  we  are  reminded  that  bishops  are  the  successors  of 
the  Apostles,  but  what  has  struck  me  as  most  remarkable 
in  reading  it  is  that  I  can  find  no  hint  of  this  doctrine  of 
Apostolical  Succession  which  we  are  told  is  the  Catholic 
theory  of  Orders.  There  may  be  some  reference  somewhere 
in  the  Summa  which  I  have  overlooked,  as  I  have  not  read 
the  work  through.  But  if  this  were  at  all  the  doctrine  of 
that  time,  and  if  it  was,  as  it  has  been  maintained,  an  essen¬ 
tial  part  of  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church,  there  would 
not,  I  imagine,  be  any  great  difficulty  in  discovering  it. 
I  have  searched  with  the  object  of  finding  it  in  the  Canon 
Law  and  in  writings  such  as  those  of  van  Espen,  and  in  the 
decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  although  I  find  the  state¬ 
ment  that  bishops  are  the  successors  of  the  Apostles,  I  find 
nothing  in  them  to  support  this  theory  of  succession  by 
Ordination.  Most  remarkable,  too,  is  the  fact  that  there  is 
no  reference  to  it  in  the  Bull  Aftostolicae  Curae.  In  fact,  a 
theory  is  suggested  which  is  quite  inconsistent  with  it.1 
It  is  true  that  we  find  succession  by  Ordination  stated  with 
a  confidence  of  assertion  quite  unequalled  by  Cardinal 
Vaughan  and  his  fellow-bishops.  But  his  manifesto  con¬ 
tains  many  confident  assertions,  and  I  am  afraid  that  in  this 
case  it  looks  as  if  he  had  been  copying  the  doubtful  theory 
of  some  of  our  Anglican  divines. 

Moreover,  if  this  theory  of  Orders  were  necessary  and  essen¬ 
tial,  we  should  undoubtedly  find  it  definitely  laid  down  in  our 
Anglican  formularies.  But  I  cannot  personally  find  it  any¬ 
where,  and  the  defenders  of  the  doctrine  do  not  make  any 

1  I  refer  to  the  statement :  “When  anyone  has  rightly  and  seriously 
made  use  of  the  due  form  and  matter  requisite  for  effecting  or 
conferring  the  Sacrament,  he  is  considered  by  the  fact  itself  to  do 
what  the  Church  does.  On  this  principle  rests  the  doctrine  which 
holds  that  to  be  a  true  Sacrament  which  is  conferred  according  to  the 
Catholic  rite  by  the  ministry  of  a  heretic  or  an  unbaptized  person.’ ’ 
If  these  words  were  taken  literally  they  would  imply  that  anyone 
who  used  the  right  form  and  matter  could  celebrate  a  Sacrament, 
but  they  may  be  intended  to  refer  only  to  unbelieving  and  heretical 
bishops. 


THEORIES  OF  ORDERS 


267 

attempt  to  quote  such  justification.  What  I  would  put  to 
you  is,  By  what  right  can  we  hold  a  doctrine  to  be  essential 
which  is  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  be  found  in  any  authorita¬ 
tive  document  of  any  portion  of  the  Christian  Church  ? 

We  have  examined  here  two  different  theories  of  Orders 
in  the  Church — that  of  the  character  indelebilis,  and  that 
of  the  Apostolic  Succession — and  we  do  not  find  any  really 
Catholic  sanction  for  either  of  them.  What  I  believe  to 
be  true  is  this:  our  Lord  instituted  certain  Sacraments 
which  He  gave  to  the  Church,  and  the  Apostles  appointed 
ministers  in  the  Church  by  prayer  and  laying  on  of  hands. 
The  Church  from  the  beginning  celebrated  the  Sacraments 
as  our  Lord  commanded,  and  normally,  no  doubt,  it  would  be 
the  Apostles,  if  present,  who  presided  at  “  the  Breaking  of 
the  Bread.”  But  in  the  early  days  in  Jerusalem  there  were 
5,000  believers.  They  met  daily  from  house  to  house  for  the 
Breaking  of  the  Bread.  There  must  have  been  many  meet¬ 
ings  of  Christians  in  houses  for  such  a  purpose  at  which  no 
Apostles  could  be  present,  and  we  are  not  told  of  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  any  other  ministers.  At  any  rate,  the  point  which 
is  of  fundamental  importance  is  that  nothing  at  all  is  ever 
said  in  the  New  Testament  enjoining  any  particular  person 
or  persons  to  be  ministers  of  the  Sacrament.  If  these  things 
were  essential  they  would  have  been  definitely  ordered. 
Although  the  Church,  as  we  recognize,  laid  down  definite  rules 
at  a  later  time,  it  was  believed  that  if  there  were  no  minister 
present  a  layman  might  consecrate  the  Eucharist.  This 
statement  of  Tertullian  probably  represented  an  authentic 
tradition.1 

Now,  at  the  Reformation  much  schism  arose,  and  what- 

1  Tertullian  argues  that,  a  layman  may  do  whatever  a  priest 
may  do  in  case  of  necessity,  and  therefore  is  bound  by  the  same  disci¬ 
pline  as  a  priest.  If  a  priest  must  not  marry  twice,  neither  must 
a  layman,  for  a  layman  is  a  priest.  “  Differentiam  inter  ordinem  et 
plebem  constituit  ecclesiae  auctoritas,  et  honor  per  ordinis  consessum 
sanctificatus.  Adeo  ubi  ecclesiastici  ordinis  non  est  consessus,  et 
offers  et  tinguis  et  sacerdos  es  tibi  solus.  Sed  ubi  tres,  ecclesia  est, 
licet  laici  ”  (Tertullian,  De  exhortatione  castitatis,  chap.  vii.).  It 
is  argued  that  these  words  were  only  used  by  Tertullian  as  a  Mon- 
tanist.  But  his  aim  clearly  is  to  try  and  convert  the  Church  to  his 
views  on  digamy,  and  his  argument  would  have  little  weight  if  not 
accepted  by  the  Catholic  Church.  He  is  addressing  Catholics  and 
quoting  what  they  believe. 


268  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 


ever  may  have  been  the  fault  of  the  Reformers,  the  fault  of 
the  Medieval  Church  was  as  great.  The  hierarchy  of  the  day 
was  the  most  potent  cause  of  division.  The  Reformers, 
partly  by  misfortune,  partly  by  design,  revolted  from  the 
hierarchy.  Of  this  revolt  the  hierarchy,  as  it  then  was,  was 
the  effective  cause.  Quite  correctly  and  sincerely  the  Re¬ 
formers  aimed  in  their  Sacraments  and  ministry  at  fulfilling 
the  will  of  Christ.  They  did  what  He  commanded.  Their 
intention  was  to  do  what  He  had  done.  I  believe,  there¬ 
fore,  that  in  all  those  bodies  which  solemnly  appoint  their 
ministers  by  laying  on  of  hands  and  prayer,  and  celebrate 
the  Sacraments  in  accordance  with  our  Lord’s  commands, 
the  Orders  and  Sacraments  are  valid. 

But  now  we  come  to  a  second  order  of  facts.  The  Church, 
entrusted  with  the  sacred  gift  of  the  Sacraments,  and 
starting  with  the  rules  and  customs  of  the  Apostles,  gradu¬ 
ally  laid  down  its  rule  of  Orders.  This  rule  was  in  a 
particular  way  directed  to  the  promotion  of  unity.  It  was 
with  that  purpose  that  the  Eucharist  was  made  dependent 
on  the  bishop,  that  the  offering  of  the  gifts  was  the  liturgical 
function  of  the  regular  ministry.  It  was  with  that  purpose 
that  the  rules  of  episcopal  ordination  were  accepted  and 
made  universal.  A  bishop  was  the  officer,  not  merely  of 
the  local  church,  but  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Therefore 
the  Church,  as  a  whole,  must  take  part  in  his  consecration, 
and  to  secure  this  the  rule  grew  up  that  not  fewer  than  three 
bishops  of  other  churches  must  be  present  and  take  part 
in  the  ceremony.  This  rule  was  successful.  The  unity 
of  the  Church  was  preserved  by  a  strong  system  of  order. 
The  local  church  was  made  conspicuously  a  part  of  the 
whole  Catholic  Church,  and  each  generation  was  solemnly, 
by  the  visible  sign  of  succession,  connected  with  past  genera¬ 
tions.  As  an  external  sign  of  the  unity  and  continuity 
of  the  Church,  the  fact  of  Apostolic  Succession  has  been  of 
supreme  value. 

We  are  aiming  at  the  restoration  of  Christian  unity. 
We  are  aiming  at  bringing  together  all  the  scattered  frag¬ 
ments  of  Christ’s  Church,  and  we  are  asking  what  form  the 
Church  should  take.  It  is  both  wise  and  natural  to  say 
that  it  is  that  form  of  Church  Order  which  preserved  Church 


THE  EUCHARIST 


269 

unity  before.  There  are  warnings  which  the  study  of  the 
history  of  the  early  centuries  can  give  us,  there  are  some 
things  which  they  did  and  said,  which  we  had  better  avoid. 
But  the  Christian  Church  of  those  days  did  display  a  re¬ 
markable  unity,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  no  schism  arose 
in  any  quarter  on  Church  government.  The  theory  of  the 
Church  was  too  narrow,  but  the  unity  of  the  Church  was 
preserved  and  its  freedom  secured  by  a  strong  and  elastic 
rule  of  Church  Order. 

And  when  the  Church  departed  from  the  Catholic  rule, 
the  result  was  a  loss  of  freedom  and  unity.  The  Papacy 
destroyed  freedom,  Protestantism  destroyed  unity  and  order. 
It  is,  then,  not  because  I  believe  that  the  historical  Episco¬ 
pacy  is  necessary  for  valid  Orders,  but  because  I  believe 
that  it  is  necessary  to  secure  Christian  unity,  that  I  hold  that 
it  must  be  the  rule  of  a  re-united  Church. 

Two  things,  then,  are  essential  in  the  cause  of  reunion. 
The  first  is  the  fullest  and  freest  recognition  as  a  condition 
of  reunion  of  the  Orders  and  Sacraments  of  all  those  who  have 
been  ordained  in  accordance  with  the  Apostolic  rale  with 
prayer  and  laying  on  of  hands,  and  who  have  celebrated 
the  Sacraments  according  to  the  command  of  our  Lord. 
The  second  is  the  most  careful  adoption  by  the  united  Church 
of  the  historical  Episcopate  and  the  rule  of  episcopal  ordina¬ 
tion  for  all  its  ministry  in  the  future. 

V 

The  third  point  that  demands  our  consideration  is  union 
in  the  Sacraments  and  prayers;  in  particular  union  in  the 
chief  Sacrament  of  the  Christian  Church — the  Sacrament  of 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  To  that  problem  we  will 
now  address  ourselves.1 

The  Holy  Communion  was  intended  to  be  the  great 
Christian  Sacrament  of  unity.  How  comes  it,  then,  that  it  is 
the  great,  at  any  rate  the  apparent,  cause  of  Christian  dis¬ 
union  ?  In  humbly  partaking  of  the  bread  and  wine  which 
had  been  blessed  and  broken  in  obedience  to  their  Master’s 

1  The  greater  part  of  this  section  is  taken  from  a  sermon  which 
was  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford  on  June  9,  1901,  and 
published  in  the  Oxford  Magazine  for  June  12, 


270  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

command,  the  early  Christians  felt  that  they  were  united  in 
one  body  in  Him;  at  each  place  to  which  they  travelled 
they  found  a  community  of  fellow-believers  with  whom 
they  became  one  in  the  life-giving  Body  and  Blood  of  their 
ascended  Lord.  In  strange,  enigmatical  language  the  bishop 
of  an  obscure  town  in  Phrygia,  who  had  travelled  to  Rome 
in  the  West  and  Nisibis  in  the  East,  has  recorded  on  his 
tomb  how  “  everywhere  he  had  associates.  In  company 
with  Paul  he  followed,  while  everywhere  faith  led  the  way, 
and  set  before  him  for  food  the  fish  from  the  fountain,  mighty 
and  stainless  (whom  a  pure  virgin  grasped),  and  gave 
these  to  friends  to  eat  always,  having  good  wine  and  giving 
the  mixed  cup  with  bread.”1 

So  it  was.  Now  we  may  travel  from  country  to  country, 
and  everywhere  we  are  conscious  that  it  is  just  from  that 
rite  in  which  we  might  be  united  with  the  devout  Christians 
of  every  country  that  we  are  excluded,  while  in  our  own 
land  we  are  everywhere  surrounded  by  those  of  many  sects 
and  many  names  with  whom  we  have  no  communion  in  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  And  if  we  look  forward  in  any 
spirit  of  hope  to  Christian  reunion,  at  once  we  are  confronted 
by  the  question,  Where  can  there  be  any  union  among  those 
who  differ  so  much  on  a  subject  of  such  transcendent  im¬ 
portance  ?  It  seems  to  be  a  theme  that  it  is  almost  pre¬ 
sumptuous  to  touch  upon,  but  may  I  be  allowed  to 
suggest  what  I  believe  to  be  the  only  possible  method  for 
remedying  it  ? 

Let  me  ask  you  to  look  first  at  the  account  of  the  institu¬ 
tion,  and  consider  what  it  implies.  I  do  not  know  or  care 
now  to  discuss  the  critical  questions  involved.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  distrust  of  the  narrative,  I  do  not  say  of  every 
detail  of  the  narrative,  must  arise  from  a  confirmed  predis¬ 
position  to  disbelieve  the  miraculous  element  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  story.  If  Jesus  instituted  the  Eucharist  in  any  way  at 
all  resembling  the  narratives  we  possess,  it  implies  clearly 
a  consciousness  of  a  more  than  human  mission,  a  preknow- 

1  The  epitaph  of  Abercius,  Bishop  of  Hieropolis,  may  be  read  most 
conveniently  in  Christian  Inscriptions,  by  H.  P.  V.  Nunn  (London: 
S.P.C.K.),  p.  23.  A  full  account  of  its  discovery  with  reference  to 
the  earlier  literature  will  be  found  in  Lightfoot,  Ignatius  and  Poly  carp, 
i.,  p.  476. 


THE  EUCHARIST 


27 1 

ledge  of  His  death,  and  of  the  meaning  of  His  death,  a 
prophetic  intimation  of  the  Christian  Church.  Naturally 
those  who  are  unable  to  believe  this  must  find  some  reason 
for  dismissing  the  whole  narrative  or  for  modifying  it  to 
suit  their  prejudices.  For  our  purpose  it  is  sufficient  to 
dwell  on  the  main  features  of  the  story  as  given  us  by  at 
least  three  independent  witnesses — all  certainly  early — 
and  as  supported  by  the  practice  of  the  Christian  Church 
from  the  beginning.  The  Lord’s  Supper  was  instituted  at 
the  time  of  the  Passover — whether  actually  at  a  Paschal 
meal  or  not  we  cannot  determine — when  men’s  minds  were 
filled  with  all  the  conceptions  and  ideas  associated  with  the 
great  sacrificial  rite  of  the  Old  Covenant ;  and  all  the  leading 
ideas  of  what  was  passing  away  are  represented  in  the  new 
rite.  The  Passover  was  the  great  feast  of  the  Covenant. 
In  it  the  Jew  felt  and  realized  his  full  communion  with  the 
chosen  people,  and  he  shared  in  the  privilege  of  being  united 
with  Jehovah  in  the  bonds  of  the  Covenant.  “Behold 
Israel  after  the  flesh :  are  not  they  which  eat  of  the  sacrifices 
partakers  of  the  altar?”  The  Passover  implied  probably 
three  things  at  least.  It  was  a  memorial  of  the  great  redemp¬ 
tion  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  and  in  that  of  all  the  mercies  of 
God  vouchsafed  to  His  chosen  people;  it  was  the  external 
symbol  of  union  with  the  body  of  Israel,  the  assembly  of  the 
saints;  it  was  the  means  by  which  each,  in  partaking  of 
the  sacred  meal,  realized  for  himself  all  the  spiritual  blessings 
that  he  shared  in  as  a  true  Israelite.  I  do  not  think  that 
this  would  exhaust  the  associations  and  ideas  connected  with 
the  Passover,  for  there  was  no  authorized  theology;  it  was 
a  rite  and  service,  not  a  doctrine.  What  was  demanded 
was  that  the  sacrifice  should  be  duly  eaten:  in  an  attitude 
of  obedience  came  the  spiritual  blessing  and  the  doctrinal 
knowledge. 

The  Christian  Sacrament  succeeded  to  and  inherited  the 
conceptions  of  the  Jewish  sacrifice.  “Christ  our  Passover 
is  sacrificed  for  us,  therefore  let  us  keep  the  feast.”  As  the 
Paschal  lamb  without  spot  or  blemish  was  slain,  so  Christ, 
the  lamb  without  sin,  died  on  the  Cross;  as  the  blood  was 
poured  forth  on  the  altar,  so  Christ  shed  His  blood  as  an 
atonement  for  our  sins;  as  the  Israelite  shared  in  the  benefits 


272  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

of  the  Covenant  by  partaking  of  the  sacrificial  meal  which 
implied  for  J  ew  and  Gentile  alike  union  with  the  divine,  so 
the  Christian  received  all  the  benefits  of  his  redemption  in 
Christ  by  devoutly  partaking  of  what  his  Master  had  called 
His  Body  and  Blood.  And  the  analogy  which  was  implied 
in  the  common  expression  of  the  Early  Church,  the  Unbloody 
Sacrifice,  was  complete.  In  the  Eucharist,  as  in  the  Passover, 
was  the  continual  remembrance  of  a  great  scheme  of  redemp¬ 
tion;  in  the  Eucharist  was  the  visible  sign  of  brotherly 
unity;  in  the  Eucharist  was  the  spiritual  blessing  implied 
in  the  communion  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ.  In 
the  Eucharist,  as  in  the  Passover,  the  primary  thought  was 
a  rite  to  be  accomplished,  a  command  obeyed,  not  a  doctrine 
accepted. 

If  we  ask,  then,  what  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
Eucharist,  it  is  that  it  is  a  religious  ordinance,  something  in 
which  the  primary  command  was  not  that  we  were  to  believe 
anything,  but  to  do  something.  “  This  do  in  remembrance 
of  me  ”  is  the  command :  not  to  believe  anything,  or  to  under¬ 
stand  anything,  or  to  accept  any  particular  words  in  any 
particular  way;  the  command  was  to  “  do  ”  something. 
Now,  if  we  pass  to  the  thoughts  and  ideas  of  people  at  the 
present  day,  we  find  that  they  approach  the  Holy  Communion 
from  an  exactly  opposite  and,  I  believe,  quite  erroneous  point 
of  view.  The  emphasis  is  not  laid  upon  obedience  to  a  com¬ 
mand,  but  on  a  particular  form  of  belief,  or  on  a  particular 
comprehension  of  a  divine  mystery.  Hence  the  unity  of  our 
Christian  worship  is  continually  being  broken,  and  the  reality 
of  our  devotion  marred,  by  discussions  of  problems  in  which 
we  are  unable,  and  were  never  intended,  to  arrive  at  a  con¬ 
clusion. 

I  wish  to  put  before  you  to-day  three  main  propositions. 
First,  that  the  emphasis  on  the  particular  form  of  belief  in 
the  Eucharist  is  quite  contrary  to  all  the  feelings  and  beliefs 
of  the  undivided  Christian  Church.  Secondly,  that  the  chief 
cause  of  division  between  different  bodies  of  Christians  has 
been  the  attempt  to  make  dogmatic  systems  on  questions 
of  Eucharistic  belief.  And,  thirdly,  that  the  only  hope  of 
Christian  union  is  not  in  any  formula  to  which  all  may  agree, 
but  in  recognizing  that  all  can  join  in  accepting  a  common 


THE  EUCHARIST 


273 

Liturgical  worship ;  for  so  far  as  worship  is  concerned,  there 
is — if  men  would  only  look  at  what  they  believe,  and  not  at 
what  they  do  not  believe — among  all  devout  minds,  a  real 
and  genuine  common  ground  of  belief. 

1.  As  regards  the  customs  of  the  undivided  Church,  one 
single  instance  will  enable  us  to  appreciate  their  point  of 
view.  We  happen  to  have  a  course  of  catechetical  instruc¬ 
tion  which  was  delivered  in  Jerusalem  about  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century.1  The  writer  devoted  a  long  course  of 
lectures  to  explaining,  illustrating,  and  defending  the  Chris¬ 
tian  creed,  the  acceptance  of  which  was  the  main  obligation 
of  Baptism.  He  was  concerned  that  everyone  should  possess 
a  right  belief  in  a  right  way.  On  the  night  of  the  baptism 
those  who  were  candidates  for  the  sacred  rite  assembled 
in  their  white  robes;  they  were  bathed  in  the  life-giving 
waters,  and  immediately  the  ceremony  was  over  were  con¬ 
ducted  from  the  baptistery  to  the  church  that  they  might 
share  in  the  Christian  mysteries.  Of  the  nature,  meaning, 
and  character  of  these  mysteries  they  were  given  no  know¬ 
ledge  beforehand.  It  was  only  afterwards  that  the  explana¬ 
tion  was  given.  Theologians  are  continually  disputing  as  to 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  language  that  Cyril  used.  They  try 
to  discover  in  it  Transubstantiation,  or  Consubstantiation, 
or  the  doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence,  or  to  see  how  they  may 
escape  from  one  or  other  of  these  alternatives.  They  forget 
that  Cyril  was  not  concerned  with  any  such  questions. 
While  he  is  teaching  the  divinity  of  our  Lord,  he  is  anxious 
that  his  meaning  should  not  be  misunderstood.  He  is  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  orthodoxy  of  his  hearers.  Now  he  is  con¬ 
cerned  only  with  their  practical  devotion,  and  so,  while  he 
is  anxious  that  they  should  grasp  all  that  is  implied  in  the 
Eucharist,  he  is  not  concerned  with  their  being  able  to  ex¬ 
press  in  any  orthodox  manner  their  belief. 

We  may  extend  this  principle  farther.  We  find  constant 
attempts  made  to  define  the  Patristic  belief,  or  the  belief 
of  the  Early  Church  in  the  Holy  Communion.  This  is  a 
process  which  is  perfectly  easy  so  long  as  we  confine  our 
attention  to  such  passages  as  harmonize  with  the  conclu- 

1  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Catechetical  Lectures,  xix.-xxiii.,  “To  the 
newly  baptized.” 

18 


274  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

sions  that  we  wish  to  arrive  at.  If  we  once  honestly  look  at 
all  the  passages  which  can  be  collected,  we  shall  find  that  it 
is  impossible.  And,  more  than  that,  we  shall  find  that  many 
passages  which  seem  to  teach  what  men  would  call  an  ex¬ 
treme  doctrine  are  balanced  by  others  which  modify  or 
nullify  that  belief.1 

Is  there,  then,  no  Catholic  heritage,  it  may  be  asked,  of 
Eucharistic  teaching  ?  Has  the  Church  never  spoken  or 
given  a  decision  ?  There  is  a  heritage,  but  it  is  not  a  defined 
doctrine,  it  is  one  of  Eucharistic  worship.  The  command 
of  our  Lord  was  to  do  something,  not  to  formulate  a  belief. 
This  command  the  Church  obeyed;  its  belief  is  contained  in 
the  ecclesiastical  traditions  of  liturgical  worship,  but  the 
tradition  must  be  used  for  worship,  and  not  for  dogma. 
In  every  branch  of  the  Church  there  is  the  inheritance  of  a 
liturgical  form.  This  contains,  expressed  in  the  only  way 
that  is  necessary,  the  belief  of  the  Church.  These  forms  are 
older  than  the  days  of  controversy.  Their  language  is  inde¬ 
pendent  of  it.  All  the  Liturgies  are  perfectly  consistent 
with  almost  any  attempt  to  define  Eucharistic  doctrine. 
In  accepting  the  Liturgies  as  our  common  standard — 
for  worship,  not  for  definition — lies  our  hope  for  the 
future.  h;-<: 

2.  So  long  as  the  Church  avoided  definition  there  was 
little  discussion  on  the  Eucharist,  but  Eucharistic  worship 
was  the  centre  of  all  Church  life.  With  definition  has  come 
disunion.  I  need  not  enter  now  into  the  causes  which  pro¬ 
duced  the  change.  It  is  sufficient  to  remember  that  first 
of  all  the  theory  of  Transubstantiation  was  formulated, 
that  that  theory  was  made  a  necessary  article  of  belief, 
that  on  the  basis  of  it  was  built  up  a  whole  structure  of  doc¬ 
trine  and  practice  quite  alien  to  the  custom  and  tradition  of 
earlier  centuries,  and  that  the  establishment  of  the  Inquisi¬ 
tion  prevented  that  free  discussion  which  might  have  proved 
a  silent  corrective  to  the  evils  of  practice  and  doctrine  which 
had  arisen.  It  was  the  suppression  of  the  healthy  pro¬ 
cesses  and  forces  of  public  opinion  which  made  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  in  the  form  in  which  it  took  place  necessary,  and  made 

1  This  will  become  clear  from  a  careful  study  of  Dr.  Darwell 
Stone,  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Holy  Eucharist. 


THE  EUCHARIST 


275 

the  Reformed  churches  reproduce  and  continue  some  of  the 
worst  faults  of  the  Medieval  Church.  The  age  of  doctrinal 
definition  arose;  the  Schoolmen  had  tried  to  leave  no  open 
questions,  but  their  decisions  were  not  considered  binding 
on  the  conscience  of  the  Church.  Many  of  the  Reformers 
attempted  equally  strongly  to  define  everjdhing;  they  at¬ 
tempted  also  to  impose  their  individual  opinions  on  their 
followers.  They  defined  also  not  what  a  man  must  believe, 
but  what  he  must  not.  The  Roman  Church  had  set  a 
bad  example  in  its  definition  of  Transubstantiation.  It  had 
built  up  what  is  almost  universally  admitted  to  have  been 
a  corrupt  practical  system.  The  Reformers  felt  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  define  as  clearly  and  as  loudly  what  they  did  not 
believe,  and  to  prevent  the  corrupt  practices  by  condemn¬ 
ing  the  erroneous  belief.  As,  when  they  came  to  make  their 
definitions,  they  found  that  it  was  impossible  to  secure 
agreement  either  positive  or  negative  among  themselves, 
they  multiplied  the  creeds  and  the  divisions  of  Christianity. 

Our  own  Church  has  shewn  a  singular  moderation  in  this 
as  in  many  other  directions.  It  has  never  attempted  to 
formulate  its  belief.  It  has  given  us  a  Liturgy  which  is  in 
accordance  with  Catholic  tradition;  it  has  condemned  Tran¬ 
substantiation  and  Zwinglianism ;  between  these  limits 
it  is  admitted  that  our  belief  is  free.  But  if  the  Church 
has  thus  recognized  that  definition  of  Eucharistic  belief 
is  not  essential,  parties  within  the  Church  have  not  recog¬ 
nized  this.  On  the  one  side  there  has  been  a  constant  ten¬ 
dency  to  impose,  on  the  other  an  equally  constant  tendency 
to  condemn,  certain  specific  forms  of  belief.  Whether  or  no 
we  are  prepared  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  objective  Real 
Presence,  it  is,  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  been  taught,  quite 
consistent  with  the  doctrine  and  the  formulas  of  the  Church  of 
England;  yet  a  great  theologian  was  suspended  from  preach¬ 
ing  for  two  years  for  defending  the  doctrine  in  the  pulpit  of 
this  University;  on  the  other  side  we  are  constantly  hearing 
it  stated  that  this  or  that  form  of  belief  is  not  loyal  to  the 
Church.  One  tells  us  that  Hooker,  another  that  Waterland, 
another  that  Pusey  represents  the  teaching  of  our  Church. 
But  the  Church  of  England  is  broader  than  Hooker  or  Water- 
land  or  Pusey,  as  the  Church  of  Christ  means  more  than 


276  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

Augustine  or  Chrysostom  or  Aquinas  or  Calvin.  A  new 
word  is  invented  now,  “  objective.”  It  is  a  word  which  it 
would  puzzle  philosophers  to  define,  and  I  know  no  authority 
which  should  compel  us  to  make  up  our  mind  whether 
what  we  believe  so  earnestly  is  correctly  to  be  defined  as 
real  or  objective,  spiritual  or  substantial. 

Some  years  ago  a  conference  was  held  of  divines  of  the 
English  Church  in  order  to  arrive  at  some  compromise  or 
common  ground  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist }  Very  soon 
it  became  apparent  that  the  main  subject  which  was  to  be 
discussed  was  whether  it  was  the  glorified  body  of  our  Lord, 
or  that  under  which  He  suffered,  that  was  present  to  us  in 
the  Eucharist.  Does  this  honestly  seem  a  question  on 
which  it  is  either  necessary,  or  desirable,  or  possible  to  make 
up  our  minds  ?  It  may  be  an  interesting  subject  of  specula¬ 
tion — and  reverent  speculation  in  divine  things  is  a  valuable 
discipline  for  the  mind — but  can  anyone  say  that  it  is  a  sub¬ 
ject  upon  which  any  conclusion  that  we  arrive  at  can  be 
more  than  tentative  ?  Yet  that  conference  will  suggest  to  us 
a  very  practical  solution  of  our  difficulties.  A  body  of  sober 
and  wise  theologians  had  met  together.  It  became  apparent 
at  once  that  to  all  alike  the  Holy  Communion  was  a  service 
infinitely  sacred;  all  believed  in  the  undoubted  spiritual 
benefit  that  they  could  attain  by  it ;  to  all  it  represented  a 
great  element  of  their  religious  life;  yet  each  expressed  his 
belief  in  a  different  manner,  nor  could  a  common  definition 
have  been  possible,  except  by  omitting  all  the  various  sub¬ 
jects  of  dispute.  Yet  all  were  ready  quite  loyally  to  accept 
as  the  language  of  their  public  Eucharistic  worship  the 
service  of  the  English  Prayer-Book.  Some  might  wish  it 
enriched,  some  might  desire  to  eliminate  different  elements ; 
yet  on  the  basis  of  that  they  can  all  unite  so  far  as  the 
language  of  worship  goes.  Is  not  this  significant,  and. does 
it  not  suggest  that  our  right  solution  of  the  many  difficulties 
which  arise  must  be  the  acceptance  of  a  common  worship, 
not  the  formularization  of  a  common  doctrine  of  the 
Eucharist  ? 

1  The  Doctrine  of  Holy  Communion  and  its  Expression  in  Ritual. 
Report  of  a  Conference  held  at  Fulham  Palace  in  October,  1900. 
Edited  by  Henry  Wace,  D.D.,  Chairman  of  the  Conference.  London  : 
Longmans,  Green  and  Co.,  1900. 


THE  EUCHARIST 


2  77 


3.  I  would  maintain,  then,  that  ultimately  it  must  be  in 
the  common  or  mutual  acceptance  of  a  liturgical  service 
that  unity  among  Christians  is  possible  But  it  may  be  said 
such  a  union  will  be  unreal,  for  it  will  be  in  such  very  different 
ways  that  the  same  service  is  accepted  by  all.  I  do  not  think 
so.  Let  us  hear  the  words  of  a  leading  Evangelical  divine: 
“  I  believe  that  if  our  eyes,  like  those  of  Elisha’s  servant  at 
Dothan,  were  opened  to  the  unseen,  we  should  indeed 
behold  our  Lord  present  at  our  Communions.  There  and 
then,  assuredly,  if  anywhere  and  at  any  time,  He  remembers 
His  promise,  4  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in 
my  Name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them.’  Such  special 
presence,  the  promised  congregational  presence,  is  perfectly 
mysterious  in  mode,  but  absolutely  true  in  fact ;  no  creation 
of  our  imagination,  or  emotion,  but  an  object  for  our  faith. 
...  I  believe  that  we  should  worship  Him  thus  present 
in  the  midst  of  us  in  His  living  grace,  with  unspeakable 
reverence,  thanksgiving,  joy,  and  love.  We  should  revere 
the  Bread  and  the  Wine  with  a  proper  sense  of  their  sacred¬ 
ness  as  given  by  Him  in  physical  assurance  of  our  joyful 
part,  as  believers  in  Him,  and  so  as  members  of  Him,  in  all 
the  benefits  of  His  passion.  Receiving  them,  while  behold¬ 
ing  Him,  we  should,  through  them  as  His  equivalent  signs 
of  His  once  sacrificed  Body  and  Blood,  take  deep  into  us  a 
fresh  certainty  of  our  perfect  acceptance  in  Him  our  Sacri¬ 
fice,  and  also  of  our  mystical  union  with  Him  as  He,  once 
dead,  now  lives  for  us  and  in  us,  thus  feeding  on  Him  in  the 
heart,  by  fa,ith,  with  thanksgiving.”1 

I  have  purposely  omitted  in  this  quotation  certain  state¬ 
ments  of  what  the  writer  does  not  believe,  because  it  is  not 
of  importance  really  to  know  what  is  not  a  man’s  faith. 
To  learn  his  spiritual  life  and  power  we  must  know  what  he 
does  believe.  And  I  put  it  to  you,  Will  not  such  a  man 
be  as  devout,  as  reverent  a  communicant,  as  any  believer 
in  Transubstantiation  ?  Is  he  not  as  conscious  of  the  super¬ 
natural  in  our  midst  ?  Are  not  to  him  the  spiritual  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Communion,  and  the  divine  presence  at  the 
Sacrament,  realities  for  which  he  could  give  his  life  ?  Is  not 
the  service,  then,  as  real,  as  full  of  meaning,  to  him  as  to  the 

1  Dr.  Moule  in  Doctrine  of  Holy  Communion,  pp.  72,  73. 


278  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

most  devout  High  Churchman  ?  Is  there  any  barrier  but 
that  of  words  to  keep  him  and  them  apart  ? 

It  is,  then,  in  our  mutual  acceptance  of  our  common 
Liturgy  that  we  can  all  unite.  It  is  in  that  only  that  we  do 
unite,  and  I  would  suggest  that  we  should  recognize  that  and 
banish  all  articles  or  dogmatic  definitions,  whether  positive 
or  negative.  The  use  of  the  service  is  a  sufficient  standard. 
There  is  no  need  to  condemn  anything  either  positively  or 
negatively.  We  must  not  be  too  anxious  to  raise  anyone  to 
a  certain  point  of  belief.  It  is  both  futile  and  unnecessary 
to  condemn  Transubstantiation.  It  is  unnecessary  because 
the  word  in  its  literal  signification  no  one  desires  to  accept ; 
it  is  futile  because  all  that  it  implies  is  held  quite  loyally 
by  some  members  of  our  own  Church .  The  Church,  of  course, 
may  and  will  direct  the  teaching  of  her  clergy  by  catechisms 
or  other  authorized  formulas,  but  that  is  a  different  thing. 
It  is  one  thing  to  bind  a  man’s  conscience,  it  is  another 
to  direct  his  devotions.  It  is  one  thing  to  bid  our  clergy  teach 
in  a  certain  manner,  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  assert  that 
any  erroneous  opinion  is  so  definitely  untrue  that  we  banish 
from  our  communion  or  our  clergy  anyone  who  holds  it. 
A  sober  standard  of  doctrine  in  the  Eucharist  is  more  likely 
to  be  gained  by  simply  accepting  the  Church  standard  of 
worship  than  by  attempting  to  force  men’s  minds  within  the 
limits  of  a  formula. 

And  if  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  our  Liturgy  that  the 
Church  of  England  unites,  it  is,  I  believe,  in  its  Liturgies 
alone  that  the  Christian  Church  will  ever  be  able  to  unite. 
All  alike,  the  Liturgies  of  St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom,  the 
Roman  Canon  of  the  Mass,  in  everything  that  is  essential, 
are  older  than  our  controversies.  I  am  quite  certain  that 
whatever  criticism  he  may  be  inclined  to  offer  concerning  it, 
no  loyal  English  Churchman  need  shrink  from  the  Eucharistic 
teaching  of  the  Roman  Mass.  “The  Canon  of  the  Mass,” 
said  Dean  Field,  “  rightly  understood  is  found  to  contain 
nothing  in  it  contrary  to  the  rule  of  faith  and  the  profession 
of  the  Protestant  churches.”1  An  ex-Roman  priest  writes: 
“  I,  who  in  the  years  1879-1883  have  said  Mass  according 
to  the  Roman  rite  over  1,000  times,  and  who  now  hold  that 

1  See  the  quotations  from  Field  given  by  Dr.  Wace,  op.  cit.,  p.  67. 


THE  EUCHARIST 


279 

no  change  in  the  elements  takes  place,  could  still,  I  think, 
say  Mass  according  to  that  rite  with  spiritual  profit  and 
devotion.”1  I  need  not  multiply  testimonies.  I  have 
preferred  to  cite  those  of  authors  who  are  undoubtedly 
what  is  called  Protestant  as  likely  to  carry  more  weight 
than  any  words  of  mine.  The  teaching  of  the  Church 
is  to  be  followed  by  rightly  using  the  Liturgies  that  it 
has  given,  not  by  attempting  to  construct  theories  out  of 
them. 

My  conclusion,  then,  is  this:  That  the  great  mistake  that 
the  Christian  Church  has  made  from  the  Middle  Ages  to  the 
present  day  is  to  have  attempted  to  define  dogmatically 
what  no  human  language  can  define  and  what  it  has  never 
been  intended  that  the  Church  should  define,  and  that  we 
shall  never  end  our  many  troubles  concerning  the  Eucharist 
until  we  have  been  willing  to  dispense  entirely  with  defini¬ 
tions;  and  this  I  would  say  not  intending  to  depreciate  or 
lower  our  Eucharistic  worship.  Definition  does  not  explain, 
it  limits  and  curtails.  To  any  devout  worshipper,  whatever 
his  theory  may  be,  the  Eucharist  is  infinitely  more  than 
theology  would  make  us  realize.  In  it  we  feel  that  we  are 
in  the  presence  of  the  Unseen  more  really  than  at  any 
other  time ;  in  it  we  remember  not  the  Passion  only,  but  the 
whole  redeeming  work  of  Christ ;  humbly  bending  before  His 
throne  we  ask  Him  to  hear  us  not  for  what  we  are,  but  for 
what  we  are  in  Him ;  there  we  plead  before  Him  as  He  pleads 
for  us  by  all  the  mercies  of  His  atoning  death ;  there  we  feel 
ourselves  united  with  Him,  and  in  Him  with  the  whole 
Church,  both  those  on  earth  and  those  already  resting  in 
Him;  there  we  can  pray  for  His  mercy  on  all  whom  we  love 
and  on  all  Christian  people ;  thence  we  can  rise  strengthened 
and  refreshed  in  newness  of  life,  to  go  forth  into  the  world 
honestly,  uprightly,  purely  living  for  Him  and  in  Him, 
strengthened  by  His  presence,  warmed  by  His  love,  com¬ 
forted  by  His  pity,  purified  by  His  grace,  with  our  minds 
turned  from  evil  and  our  hearts  set  upon  the  things  of  God 
and  His  righteousness.  There,  too,  we  can  continually 
pray  that  more  and  more  He  will  vouchsafe  to  unite  in  one 

1  Rev.  A.  W.  Hutton,  op.  cit.,  p.  55. 


280  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

body  and  in  the  unity  of  the  one  Sacrament  all  who — in 
whatever  way,  and  whatever  place — however  inadequately 
or  imperfectly,  confess  His  Holy  Name. 

VI 

I  have  tried  in  these  two  lectures  to  define  certain  princi¬ 
ples  on  which  it  ma}^  be  possible  to  build  up  a  united  Church, 
and  I  will  shortly  enumerate  them. 

1.  The  Holy  Catholic  Church  consists  of  all  baptized 
Christians  who  believe  in  the  Lord  J esus,  wherever  dispersed 
on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

2.  It  is  the  purpose  of  God  that  all  these  should  be  united 
together  in  one  Church,  but  owing  to  human  sin  and  self- 
will  this  Church  is  divided  and  rent  asunder.  It  is  the 
duty  of  all  Christians  to  work  for  its  reunion. 

3.  The  purpose  and  foundation  of  this  Church  must  be 
belief  in  Christ  as  He  has  been  revealed  to  us.  That  means 
the  acceptance  of  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa¬ 
ments  as  they  have  been  handed  down  to  us.  Further,  as 
the  Christian  Church  has  formulated  its  belief  in  a  Creed 
which  has  had  such  a  wide  acceptance  as  to  be  almost  uni¬ 
versal,  we  may  accept  it  as  the  will  of  God  that  we  should 
make  that  Creed  the  sufficient  expression  of  our  belief  in 
Him,  should  accept  it  as  an  adequate  basis  of  union,  and 
should  impose  no  other  statement  of  belief  as  necessary  to 
be  accepted  by  all  men. 

4.  Christ  ordained  two  Sacraments — Baptism  and  the 
Communion  of  His  Body  and  Blood— and  instituted  a 
ministry  for  His  Church.  These  Sacraments,  therefore, 
and  such  a  ministry  are  necessary  for  His  Church.  In  the 
present  divided  and  imperfect  state  of  the  Church  all  those 
who  celebrate  the  Sacraments  according  to  the  command 
of  our  Lord  and  with  the  full  intention  of  fulfilling  His  will, 
and  who  appoint  their  ministers  as  His  Apostles  did  with 
prayer  and  the  laying  on  of  hands,  must  be  held  to  have 
valid  Sacraments  and  Orders;  but  to  create  a  united  Church, 
which  shall  be  a  real  organic  union,  we  must  follow  that  which 
became  the  universal  rule  of  the  whole  Church,  and  is  even 
now  accepted  by  the  vast  majority  of  Christians,  and 
accept  the  traditional  ministry  of  Episcopacy  and  epis- 


PRINCIPLES  OF  UNITY  281 

copal  ordinations,  and  administer  these  in  a  careful  and 
orderly  way. 

There  are  other  rites  and  customs  of  varying  degrees  of 
authority ;  many  of  them  wholesome  elements  in  any  Christ¬ 
ian  community,  but  we  cannot  make  them  essential  to 
Christian  reunion. 

5.  Christ  ordained  His  Sacraments  as  rules  of  life  and 
devotion,  and  not  as  articles  of  belief.  What  is  essential 
is  that,  by  our  manner  of  celebrating  them,  we  should  make 
clear  that  we  intend  to  fulfil  His  will.  We  should  have 
no  necessary  rule  of  faith  about  the  Eucharist  any  more 
than  the  Church  for  the  first  1,200  years  of  its  history. 
Many  of  the  evils  of  disunion  have  come  from  an  attempt 
to  define  what  cannot  be  defined. 

I  would  put  these  before  you  as  principles  of  Christian 
reunion.  I  do  not  expect  them  to  win  immediate  accept¬ 
ance,  but  I  ask  anyone  who  is  concerned  with  these  things 
to  ponder  over  them,  to  ask  what  are  his  own  principles, 
and  also  to  ask  what  is  possible.  I  will  only  confine  myself 
in  conclusion  to  dealing  with  the  two  main  classes  of  objec¬ 
tions  which  may  be  raised. 

There  are  those  who  would  think  that  this  which  I  have 
sketched  is  too  elaborate.  It  is  not  in  their  opinion  the 
simpleness  of  the  Gospel.  I  would  ask  them  to  think  of  three 
things.  I  would  ask  them  to  remember  that  every  society 
must  have  a  definite  expression  of  purpose  and  a  definite  con¬ 
stitution.  All  experience  shews  that  what  is  too  elaborate 
hampers  life  and  growth,  but  without  some  coherent  principle 
of  belief  and  coherent  principle  of  order  there  will  be  nothing 
but  anarchy  and  chaos.  The  Church  cannot  live  on  a  basis 
of  emotion  and  goodwill  without  any  embodiment  of  its 
principles,  any  more  than  human  life  would  be  possible 
without  an  organic  framework  and  a  rigid  skeleton.  I  would 
ask  them  to  remember  next  that  Christianity  is  an  historical 
religion,  and  that  it  must  be  true  to  that  history.  We  cannot 
cut  ourselves  off  from  our  past;  it  would  be  as  fatal  to  our 
life  as  it  would  be  to  uproot  a  tree.  Our  beliefs,  our  hopes, 
and  our  aspirations  depend  upon  the  past.  We  must  put 
ourselves  into  the  line  of  historical  authority.  And  then, 
thirdly,  I  would  ask  them  to  remember  that  this  inspiration 


28 2  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 


from  the  past  as  the  grounds  of  our  hope  for  the  future  is  the 
accepted  principle  of  almost  every  section  of  the  Christian 
Church.  They  know  they  cannot  cut  themselves  off  from 
the  past.  No  reunion  is  possible  except  on  the  recognition 
of  Christianity  as  an  historical  religion  and  in  loyalty  to  the 
historical  expression  of  it. 

Then,  next,  I  would  say  something  to  those  who  would 
exclaim  that  I  was  leaving  out  so  much  of  the  Catholic  facts, 
of  traditional  Christianity.  Let  me  remind  you  once  more 
of  what  St.  Augustine  says: 

“  My  opinion  therefore  is,  that  wherever  it  is  pos¬ 
sible,  all  these  things  should  be  abolished  without 
hesitation,  which  neither  have  warrant  in  Holy  Scrip¬ 
ture,  nor  are  found  to  have  been  appointed  by  councils 
of  bishops,  nor  are  confirmed  by  the  practice  of  the 
universal  Church,  but  are  so  infinitely  various,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  different  customs  of  different  places,  that  it  is 
with  difficulty,  if  at  all,  that  the  reason  which  guided 
men  in  appointing  them  can  be  discovered.  For  even 
although  nothing  be  found,  perhaps,  in  which  they  are 
against  the  true  faith,  yet  the  Christian  religion,  which 
God  in  His  mercy  made  free,  appointing  to  her  Sacra- 
ments  very  few  in  number,  and  very  easily  observed, 
is  by  these  burdensome  ceremonies  so  oppressed,  that 
the  conditions  of  the  Jewish  Church  itself  is  prefer¬ 
able.” 

The  necessary  elements  of  the  Christian  faith  are  few, 
and  it  is  the  right  and  wise  course  to  insist  on  them  only. 
If  you  really  mean  reunion,  it  is  only  possible  if  you  reduce 
what  you  demand  from  others  to  things  which  you  feel  that 
you  can  rightly  insist  on.  If  you  desire  to  impose  every 
custom  of  the  Anglican  Church,  you  may  remain  always  in 
your  insular  isolation.  If  you  insist  only  on  what  is  essen¬ 
tial  and  really  Catholic  you  may  restore  the  complete  tradi¬ 
tion  of  the  Church.  For  what  the  fullest  and  richest  religious 
life  demands  is,  on  the  one  hand,  a  firm  and  simple  faith ;  on 
the  other,  the  widest  intellectual  freedom.  It  is  not  the 
scepticism  of  the  modernist  nor  the  rigidity  of  the  traditional¬ 
ist  that  presents  us  with  Christianity  in  its  most  complete 


DUCHESNE  ON  ANGLICAN  ORDERS  283 

form,  but  the  Church  which  has  a  firm  belief  in  Christ  as  its 
inspiration,  and  a  mind  responsive  to  everything  which 
Christian  tradition  has  handed  down  or  the  human  intellect 
inspired  by  God’s  spirit  may  discern. 

APPENDIX  TO  LECTURE  VII 

The  following  is  the  complete  text  of  the  review  by  Mon¬ 
seigneur  Duchesne  referred  to  above  (p.  24b) : 

Bulletin  Critique,  V.,  No.  14,  15  juillet,  1894  (Paris:  Thorin  et  Fils), 
p.  262.  Les  Ordinations  anglicanes,  par  Fernand  Dalbus  (Arras : 
Sueur-Chavoney,  imprimeur,  1894,  brochure  de  40  pages  in-8°). 

L’auteurde  cette  brochure  s’est  attaque  a  une  question  de  grande 
importance;  il  l’a  traitde  avec  beaucoup  de  soin  et  une  parfaite 
loyaute.  Cependant  si  ses  premisses  me  semblent  tout  a  fait  sures, 
je  crois  devoir  en  deduire  des  conclusions  tout  opposeesaux  siennes. 

M.  Dalbus  commence  par  6tablir  que  les  bveques  Parker  et 
Barlow,  de  qui  tout  le  clerge  anglican  tient  son  ordination,  ont  ete 
r6ellement  ordonnes,  ou  du  moins  que  l’on  n’est  nullement  fonde  a 
contester  leur  ordination.  D’autre  part,  le  rituel  de  l’Lglise  angli- 
cane  est  semblable,  en  substance,  au  rituel  de  l’Eglise  grecque,  et 
meme  de  l’Lglise  latine  jusqu’au  xue  siecle.  Conclusion:  les 
ministres  de  l’Eglise  anglicane  sont  aussi  bien  ordonnes  que  pou- 
vaient  l’etre  Gregoire  de  Tours,  Hincmar  de  Reims  et  autres  clercs 
latins  des  temps  anciens. 

Mais  cette  conclusion,  M.  Dalbus  s’abstient  de  la  tirer,  car  il  y  a 
des  difficultes:  i°  quant  k  l’intention  des  consecrateurs  a  certains 
moments  de  la  succession  historique;  20  contre  la  valeur  du  rituel 
anglican  actuel,  l’Lglise  romaine  ayant  ajoute  au  sien  certains  ap¬ 
pendices  que  l’on  nbglige  en  Angleterre. 

A  la  premiere  difficulty  je  r£ponds  que  l’intention,  dans  les  limites 
ou  la  reclame  la  regie  catholique,  intentio  faciendi  quod  facit  Ecclesia, 
doit  etre  presumee  jusqu’a  preuve  du  contraire.  Il  y  a  eu,  en 
dehors  de  l'Angleterre,  des  eveques  incredules;  n’oublions  pas 
qu’une  partie  du  clerge  frantjais  d6rive  son  ordination  de  M.  de 
Talleyrand.  Si  l’on  me  dit  que  l’Lglise  entend,  en  conferant  l’ordina- 
tion,  conferer  un  sacrement,  qu’elle  reconnait  a  ce  sacrement  telle 
ou  telle  efficacity  dans  le  domaine  de  la  liturgie,  de  la  penitence,  ou 
autres,  et  que,  d’autre  part,  soit  par  tel  ou  tel  prelat,  soit  par  l’Eglise 
anglicane  elle-meme  il  a  ete  enseigne  sur  ces  points  des  choses  dif- 
fyrentes  de  celles  qui  sont  re9ues  dans  l’Lglise  romaine,  je  rypondrai 
que  cela  importe  peu  a  l’intention  et  a  la  valeur  du  rite.  Le 
bapteme  peut  etre  confery  validement  par  une  personne  qui  sait 
seulement  que  c’est  un  rite  sacre  par  lequel  on  devient  chretien.  De 
meme,  les  ordinations  anglicanes  ont  toujours  ete  cyiebryes  par  des 
personnes  qui  voulaient  faire  des  eveques,  des  pretres,  et  ainsi  de 
suite.  Il  n’en  faut  pas  demander  davantage. 

Quant  a  l’objection  tirye  des  modifications  du  rituel,  elle  n’est 
pas^  plus  admissible.  Cette  objection  concerne  seulement  l’ordina- 
tion  des  pretres.  Les  scolastiques  ont  admis  que,  pour  cette  ordina¬ 
tion,  l’essentiel  du  rite  ( materia  et  forma)  consiste  dans  la  tradi¬ 
tion  des  vases  sacrys  et  dans  les  paroles  que  l’yveque  prononce  en 


284  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH— II 

les  remettant.  Maintenant  ce  systeme  est  abandonne;  il  est  trop 
clair  que,  pour  le  soutenir,  il  faudrait  considerer  comme  nulles 
toutes  les  ordinations  grecques  et  orientales,  et  meme  toutes  celles 
de  l’£glise  latine  avant  le  xie  ou  le  xne  siecle. 

Je  sais  que  Ton  s’en  tire  en  disant  que  l’liglise  a  pouvoir  sur 
les  rites  essentiels  des  sacrements,  et  qu’elle  a  fait  usage  de  ce  pou¬ 
voir  en  modifiant  la  matiere  et  la  forme  de  l’ordination.  C’est 
tres  bien;  mais,  en  choses  de  cette  gravite,  ce  n’est  pas  des  com- 
binaisons  de  theologien  qu’il  faut  mettre  en  ligne,  ce  sont  des  deci¬ 
sions  officielles  de  l’^glise.  Or,  ou  est  i°  1’acte  officiel,  public,  ex- 
plicite,  par  lequel  l’Eglise  s’est  reconnu  le  droit  dont  on  parle  ? 
2°  l’acte  officiel,  public,  explicite,  par  lequel  elle  a  declare  user  de  ce 
droit  pour  les  rites  essentiels  de  l’ordination  ?  J’ajouterai  que  l’on 
pourrait  demander  aussi  dans  quel  interet  elle  aurait  introduit  un 
changement  aussi  considerable. 

Cette  objection,  du  reste,  n’atteindrait  pas  les  ordinations  epis- 
copales  d’Angleterre,  car,  dans  le  rituel  latin  de  l’ordination  des 
eveques,  la  tradition  des  instruments  n’a  pas  et  n’a  jamais  eu  la 
situation  de  rite  essentiel.  Et  qu’on  ne  dise  pas  qu’on  ne  saurait 
etre  consacre  ev£que  d’une  manidre  valide,  si  d’abord,  on  n’a  re9u 
validement  l’ordination  presbyterale.  L’antiquite  ecclesiastique 
est  pleine  d’histoires  d’ordinations  episcopates  celebrees  sans 
que  les  degres  inferieurs  eussent  £te  prealablement  conferes. 
Nombre  de  papes  ont  ete  promus  directement  du  diaconat  a  l’epis- 
copat.  Ce  n'est  que  depuis  le  declin  du  xie  siecle  que  la  coutume 
contraire  s’est  6tablie  a  Rome  et  que  les  diacres  elus  papes  se  sont 
fait  d’abord  ordonner  pr^tres. 

La  suite  de  tout  cela,  c’est  que  les  ordinations  anglicanes  peuvent 
etre  consider6es  comme  valides.  Je  sais  qu’a  Rome  l’opinion  con¬ 
traire  est,  non  pas  imposee  en  theorie,  mais  traduite  en  pratique, 
et  que  les  ministres  convertis  sont  reordonnes,  avant  d’etre  admis 
a  continuer  leurs  fonctions  dans  l’^glise  catholique.  Mais  l’figlise 
romaine  a  le  droit  et  le  devoir  de  tenir  compte  des  scrupules  de  ses 
fideles.  Dans  l’6tat  actuel  de  l’opinion,  peu  de  catholiques  accep- 
teraient  les  sacrements  d’un  ministre  qu’ils  sauraient  n’avoir  regu 
d’autre  ordination  que  celle  de  l’figlise  anglicane.  En  ces  matieres, 
il  est  naturel  de  multiplier  les  garanties. 

Que  si,  de  la  pratique  et  de  l’opinion  d’a  present,  on  remonte  au 
temps  oil  elles  se  sont  introduces,  il  faut  bien  reconnaitre  qu’au 
xv ie  siecle,  l’etat  des  informations  sur  l’antiquit6  liturgique  n’^tait 
pas  tel  qu’il  ffit  prudent  de  contester  les  theories  des  scolastiques. 
jugees  d’apres  ces  theories,  alors  universellement  admises  dans  le 
monde  orthodoxe,  les  ordinations  anglicanes  devaient  etre  conside- 
rees  comme  invalides  ou  comme  suspectes.  Joignez  a  cela  les 
16gendes  repandues  de  bonne  heure  sur  Parker  et  Barlow,  vous 
aurez  plus  qu’il  n’en  faut  pour  expliquer  la  genese  de  l’usage  romain 
et  de  l’opinion  catholique. 

Rien  n’empeche  de  croire  que,  par  la  suite  des  temps,  cette  opinion 
se  corrige  et  que  l’autorite  ecclesiastique  elle-meme  n’en  vienne  a 
modifier  son  attitude.  Dleu  me  garde  de  lui  donner  des  conseils, 
et,  n’6tant  que  Gros  Jean,  de  vouloir  en  remontrer  &  mon  cur6. 
Mais  il  n’est  pas  inutile  que  l’attention  de  ceux  qui  ont  voix  au 
chapitre,  soit  appeffie  sur  les  questions  de  cet  ordre. 


L.  Duchesne. 


LECTURE  VIII 
REUNION 

“  Let  nothing  he  done  through  strife  or  vainglory  ;  but  in  lowliness 
of  mind  let  each  esteem  other  better  than  themselves .  Look  not  every 
man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of  others.” — 
Phil.  ii.  3,  4. 

St.  Augustine  and  the  British  bishops.  The  right  attitude  of 
mind  towards  Reunion. 

The  ideal  of  Reunion.  Inadequacy  of  federations.  The  wrong 
methods  of  approach.  Interchange  of  pulpit  and  irregular  inter¬ 
communion.  Necessity  of  a  wise  scheme. 

Relations  to  Episcopal  Churches.  Recognition  of  Orders  and 
careful  regulation  for  the  future.  The  Moravians.  The  Scandi¬ 
navian  Churches.  Confirmation.  The  Greek  Orthodox  Church. 
The  filioque.  The  Church  of  Rome.  Orders.  Freedom.  Juris¬ 
diction. 

Non-Episcopal  National  Churches.  The  Church  of  Scotland. 
Relations  to  Church  of  England.  Proposals  for  Reunion. 

The  English  Nonconformists.  The  creation  of  one  National  Church. 
Unity  without  uniformity.  Unity  in  prayers  and  Sacraments. 

Conclusion.  The  two  main  principles.  Recognition  of  Orders  and 
acceptance  of  Episcopacy.  Authority  of  the  Church.  The  only 
possible  basis.  Obstacles  to  Reunion.  Nonconformist.  Anglo- 
Catholic.  Need  of  reconciliation. 

The  Venerable  Bede  in  his  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
England  tells  a  story  of  St.  Augustine,  the  first  occupant 
of  the  See  of  Canterbury,  which  may  be  profitable  to  us  at 
the  present  time.  He  rightly  desired  to  unite  the  newly 
founded  Church  of  the  English  with  the  old  British  Church. 
To  that  end  conferences  were  arranged.  At  the  first 
British  bishops  and  doctors,  impressed  by  a  miracle  which 
the  Saint  had  wrought,  were  favourably  inclined  to  hear 
him,  and  a  larger  conference  was  summoned.  The  deputa¬ 
tion  of  seven  British  bishops,  of  many  learned  men,  especi¬ 
ally  of  monks  from  the  great  monastery  of  Bangor,  while 
on  their  way  to  the  conference,  sought  the  advice  of  a  holy 

and  wise  man  who  lived  as  an  anchorite.  They  asked 

285 


286 


REUNION 


him  whether,  in  obedience  to  the  preaching  of  St.  Augustine, 
they  should  desert  the  traditions  of  their  fathers.  He 
replied:  “  If  he  is  a  man  of  God,  follow  him.”  They  asked: 
“How  can  we  know  that?”  The  anchorite  said:  “The 
words  of  the  Lord  are,  4  Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and 
learn  of  me,  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  of  heart.’  If  that 
man  Augustine  is  meek  and  lowly  of  heart,  you  can  trust 
that  he  bears  the  yoke  of  Christ  himself,  and  offers  it  to 
you:  but  if  he  is  arrogant  and  proud,  then  he  comes  not 
from  God,  and  his  words  do  not  concern  us.”  They  said 
again:  “How  can  we  learn  this  then?”  “Arrange,”  he 
replied,  “  that  he  and  his  followers  come  first  to  the  place 
of  the  meeting.  If,  when  you  approach,  he  rises  up,  you 
may  know  that  he  is  a  servant  of  Christ,  and  may  hear 
him  readily;  but  if  he  despises  you  and  will  not  rise  up 
when  you  approach,  though  you  are  many  more  in  number, 
let  him,  too,  be  despised  by  you.”  They  did  as  he  advised. 
When  they  approached  St.  Augustine  he  remained  seated. 
Angry  at  his  pride  they  refused  to  listen  to  him,  and  although 
Augustine  shewed  no  lack  of  statesmanship  in  his  proposals 
the  conference  failed. 

I  think  this  story  has  a  lesson  for  us.  One  of  the  most 
fruitful  causes  of  Christian  division  is  the  spirit  which, 
perhaps  unconsciously,  animated  St.  Augustine,  the  assump¬ 
tion  of  ecclesiastical  superiority.  We,  like  him,  would 
desire  to  heal  the  divisions  of  Christianity  and  to  build  up 
again  our  National  Church.  Whether  we  are  successful  or 
not  must  depend  largely  on  the  spirit  in  which  we  approach 
other  religious  bodies.  If  we  approach  them  with  any 
feeling  of  conscious  superiority,  if  we  hail  them  as  schis¬ 
matics  and  bid  them  return  to  the  unity  of  the  Church,  our 
cries  will  be  in  vain.  But  if  we  approach  them  with  no 
feeling  of  superiority,  if  we  confess  that  we,  like  them,  are 
responsible  for  the  schisms  which  have  rent  asunder  the 
Church,  if  we  invite  them  as  equals  to  confer  on  the  condi¬ 
tions  under  which  Reunion  may  be  possible,  then  our  voice 
may  be  heard. 

The  bishops  of  the  Anglican  Communion  are  to  meet 
together  under  the  successor  of  St.  Augustine.  More  than 
thirteen  hundred  years  afterwards  the  same  problem  con- 


THE  IDEAL  UNITY 


287 

fronts  us.  Perhaps,  if  we  are  meek  and  lowly  of  heart,  if 
we  humbly  go  forward  to  meet  one  another  in  a  spirit  of 
peace  and  charity,  that  problem  may  not  be  insoluble. 

I 

Let  us  ask  first  what  we  are  aiming  at.  I  have  put 
before  you  in  these  lectures  the  conception  of  Christian 
unity  as  it  was  presented  by  the  undivided  Church.  The 
Church  thus  depicted  for  us  was  a  living  organic  whole. 
There  is  no  excessive  uniformity.  In  fact,  when  we  come 
to  examine  the  picture  closely  we  find  remarkable  varieties 
both  of  teaching  and  practice.  But  no  one  can  doubt 
the  real  unity  of  the  whole  Christian  society.  It  always 
seems  to  me  that  the  fact  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
early  Archbishops  of  Canterbury,  Theodore,  was  a  Greek 
of  Tarsus  is  a  striking  illustration  of  this.  No  doubt  there 
were  already  differences  in  those  days  between  the  rites 
of  East  and  West,  as  there  undoubtedly  were  in  the  theology, 
but  a  bishop  or  priest  from  any  one  part  of  the  Christian 
world  could  take  his  place  in  any  other  Church  that  he 
visited  on  terms  of  equality,  without  doubt  or  hesitation. 
It  is  a  real  unity  such  as  that  that  we  would  aim  at,  and 
that  must  imply,  I  think,  a  conscious  unity  of  faith  and 
a  common  form  of  organization.  It  must  imply,  also,  a 
complete  absence  of  over-rigidity  and  a  determination 
before  we  can  accomplish  it  to  divest  ourselves  so  far  as 
we  can  of  our  Western  and  Anglican  point  of  view.  There 
are  some  of  us  very  Western  in  our  sympathies:  we  must 
attempt  to  think  like  a  Greek,  or  a  Russian,  or  an  Armenian. 
There  are  some  of  us  very  Anglican:  we  must  try  and  look 
at  things  as  a  Lutheran  or  Presbyterian  or  Congregationalist 
would  do.  And  so  also  we  must  ask  the  Easterns  to  try 
and  think  as  do  the  Westerns,  and  the  Presbyterians  and 
Wesleyans  and  Congregationalists  must  learn  to  think  as 
Anglicans  and  Orthodox.  For  it  is  a  real  organic  unity 
that  we  desire. 

Now  I  cannot  but  think  that  this  is  not  what  many 
people  have  in  their  mind.  What  they  desire  is  a  sort  of 


288 


REUNION 


loose  federation  of  churches.  The  different  bodies  are  to 
remain  much  as  they  are.  There  is  to  be  no  attempt  at 
approximation  between  them,  no  indelicate  inquiries  on 
faith,  on  order,  on  discipline.  We  are  to  go  on  being 
divided,  but  occasionally  we  are  to  ask  one  another  to 
preach  in  our  churches,  and  we  are  from  time  to  time  to 
receive  the  Communion  together.  We  are,  in  fact,  to 
substitute  for  the  ideal  of  a  Catholic  Church  a  sort  of 
glorified  Free  Church  Council. 

Now  I  think  to  be  content  with  such  an  ideal  is  just 
what  is  likely  to  make  all  our  efforts  unsuccessful.  It  is 
that,  I  am  sure,  that  is  arousing  so  much  opposition  in  a 
section  of  the  English  Church.  To  many  people  it  seems 
that  these  proposals  to  begin  in  a  sort  of  irregular  way 
with  the  interchange  of  pulpits  and  writh  intercommunion 
are  just  wrong.  That  they  have  been  made  with  excellent 
intentions  and  in  the  very  best  spirit  is  undoubted,  but  it 
is  equally  true  that  they  seem  to  many  to  violate  every 
principle  of  faith  and  order.  St.  Paul  did  tell  us  to  keep 
the  unity  of  the  faith  and  to  do  all  things  decently  and  in 
order.  We  in  the  Church  of  England  have,  as  other  churches 
have,  certain  principles  of  faith  and  order  which  we  have 
received  from  our  fathers  and  in  which  we  and  our  fathers 
before  us  have  lived  for  many  generations.  It  may  well 
be  that  these  principles  need  some  revision.  But  is  it 
right  suddenly,  in  reply  to  an  emotional  demand,  to  say, 
“We  care  for  none  of  these  things.  We  will  throw*  them 
all  over.  We  will  act  as  if  our  principles  and  our  rules  and 
traditions  did  not  matter  ”  ? 

I  Would  ask  you  to  believe  me  that  that  is  not  the  way 
to  approach  such  a  question  as  Reunion.  The  attitude 
that  I  would  suggest  to  all  those  who  are  anxious  to  bring 
Christians  nearer  together  is  quite  different.  Let  them 
say,  “  We  are  divided  on  questions  of  faith  and  order.  We 
feel  that  on  all  sides  there  are  many  false  assumptions. 
Let  us  meet  together  and  attempt  to  come  to  an  under¬ 
standing.  Let  us  make  up  our  minds  what  we  consider 
to  be  really  the  Christian  Church,  and  how  it  should  be 
constituted.  What  is  that  fundamental  Christianity  on 
which  we  should  unite  ?  What  was  our  Lord’s  intention 


INTERCOMMUNION 


289 

about  the  ministry  and  Sacraments  ?  Let  us  put  aside 
every  prejudice  and  discuss  these  together.  Let  us  attempt 
in  that  way  to  discover  the  basis  of  Reunion.  I  think  we 
may  discover  it.” 

But  the  methods  that  are  being  proposed  are  just  those 
that  are  likely  to  defeat  their  own  aims.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  great  body  of  English  Churchmen  would  care  in 
the  least  to  give  up  their  ordered  system  for  any  sort  of 
religious  federation.  They  will  be  ready  to  reconsider 
everything  for  the  sake  of  Reunion. 

Let  me  take  another  point,  intercommunion.  The 
fundamental  reason  against  intercommunion  of  the  kind 
suggested  is  not  doubts  about  Orders  or  Sacraments.  It 
is  the  fact  that  we  are  disunited.  Intercommunion  such 
as  is  proposed  would  be  just  as  irregular  with  the  Roman 
Church  and  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church  as  it  is  with  the 
Presbyterians  or  Congregationalists.  Our  separations  have 
arisen  owing  to  differences  not  considered  light  or  unim¬ 
portant  on  faith  and  order.  Many  of  the  differences  still 
exist.  The  badge  and  symbol  of  that  separation  are  still 
enshrined  in  our  formularies.  It  may  be  that  we  consider 
them  now  meaningless  and  unimportant.  I  dare  say  we  do. 
But  if  that  be  so  let  our  churches  through  their  repre¬ 
sentatives  formally  meet  together  and  discuss  these  differ¬ 
ences.  Let  us  make  up  our  minds  in  what  we  disagree 
and  then  terminate  our  disunion.  When  that  is  done,  then 
let  us  meet  together  in  the  Communion  of  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ  as  the  symbol  of  restored  communion.  But 
do  not  think  that  a  half-sincere  and  wholly  emotional 
common  Communion  will  be  a  sound  step  towards  Reunion. 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  occasional  admission  of  the  members 
of  other  religious  bodies  when  in  danger  of  death  or  without 
their  own  religious  administrations  is  not  right.  No  rules 
should  ever  be  pressed  too  rigidly.  What  I  mean  is  that 
the  proposed  corporate  Communion  for  those  who  are  not 
united  will  do  nothing  but  hinder  Reunion,  for  it  will  not 
be  wholly  sincere. 

And  it  is  the  same  about  preaching.  The  proposed 
interchange  of  pulpits  is  a  breach  of  Church  order.  Now 
I  never  think  that  any  merely  ecclesiastical  rule  should  be 

19 


REUNION 


290 

looked  upon  as  so  binding  that  it  cannot  be  broken,  if  there 
is  any  good  result  to  be  attained.  There  are  rules  which 
fall  into  desuetude  and  are  abrogated  by  being  found 
needless  or  inconvenient.  Many  of  those  who  are  keen  about 
some  rules  steadily  ignore  others,  or,  what  is  worse,  evade 
them  by  some  equivocation.  But  what  good  does  conduct 
like  that  really  do  ?  It  will  please  some  perhaps;  but  it 
will  irritate  others.  It  will  not  help  us  to  solve  any  funda¬ 
mental  questions.  Interchange  of  pulpits  among  those 
who  are  not  yet  agreed  on  the  fundamental  principles  of 
faith  and  order  must  be  insincere;  it  should  follow  agree¬ 
ment,  not  prepare  for  it. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  a  real  demand  for  Reunion.  I 
believe  that  is  the  case.  I  believe  that  an  overwhelming 
body  of  the  laity  of  England  would  vote  for  a  well" 
thought-out  and  rational  scheme  of  Reunion,  that  they 
would  sacrifice  a  great  many  prejudices  to  bring  it  about, 
and  that  they  resent  bitterly  the  action  of  some  sections  of 
the  religious  world  who  seem  to  them  to  devote  all  their 
powers  to  putting  unnecessary  obstacles  in  the  way.  But 
the  way  to  meet  that  desire  is  for  the  theologians  and  the 
authorities  of  the  different  religious  bodies  to  meet  together 
and  put  before  them  a  scheme  to  reject  or  accept.  It  is 
not  to  cause  friction  and  irritation  by  making  proposals 
which  never  touch  the  fundamental  questions. 

I  would  put  it  before  you,  then,  that  what  we  have  all  to 
do  is  to  think  out  for  ourselves  what  we  mean  by  the  Church, 
what  we  mean  by  Orders,  what  are  the  conditions  of  a 
valid  Sacrament,  what  should  be  the  basis  of  Christian 
Reunion. 


II 

Let  us  now  consider  the  relations  of  the  Church  of  England 
to  other  branches  of  Christianity,  and  sketch  the  lines  on 
which  we  might  formulate  a  policy  of  Reunion. 

We  begin  with  those  Churches  which  have  Episcopacy. 
These  are  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church,  the  Separated  Churches  of  the  East,  the  Scandi¬ 
navian  Churches,  the  Moravians,  the  Old  Catholics,  and  the 
Jansenists.  Now  these  may  be  divided  into  those  that  are 


EPISCOPAL  CHURCHES  291 

doubtful  about  us,  and  those  about  whom  we  are  doubtful. 
On  the  one  side  there  is  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  which 
has  condemned  our  Orders,  and  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church 
which  has  not  accepted  them;  on  the  other  side  the  Scandi¬ 
navian  Churches  and  the  Moravians,  towards  whom  (what¬ 
ever  be  their  attitude  to  us)  we  have  shewn  considerable 
hesitation  about  being  too  friendly.  The  Swedish  Orders 
are,  we  think,  correct,  the  Norwegian  are  more  than  doubt¬ 
ful,  and  the  Danish  Church  does  not  (it  is  alleged)  claim 
the  succession  at  all.  I  venture  to  think  that  as  regards 
all  alike,  if  we  continue  to  discuss  these  doubtful  points, 
nothing  effective  will  ever  be  accomplished. 

To  begin  with,  then,  there  can  be  no  doubt  concerning 
all  of  them  (with  the  possible  exception  of  some  of  the 
Separated  Churches)  that,  judged  by  the  standard  of  ortho¬ 
doxy  we  have  laid  down,  they  are  orthodox.  They  all 
accept  the  Christian  Scriptures  and  the  Christian  Creed  as 
the  basis  of  their  teaching.  They  all  recognize  Baptism 
as  the  Sacrament  of  initiation,  they  all  celebrate  the  Lord’s 
Supper  with  the  intent  of  doing  what  our  Lord  did.  That 
is,  we  all  alike  accept  what  is  most  essential.  Now,  what 
is  required  for  a  willing  and  frank  Reunion  ?  It  is  an 
approach  to  one  another  on  terms  of  equality,  a  frank 
recognition  of  one  another  as  we  are;  and  then,  as  regards 
the  future,  that  we  should  none  of  us  be  able  to  question 
one  another’s  Orders,  and  should  be  united  as  closely  as 
possible  in  the  bonds  of  a  common  ministry. 

I  would  suggest,  then,  that  as  the  act  of  Reunion  we 
should  solemnly  and  formally  recognize  one  another’s  Orders 
as  valid  and  give  them  authority  for  our  own  Church.  We 
should  recognize  them  as  valid  in  regard  to  the  past  because 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  confusion  and  entanglement  of  the 
old  controversies  there  was  always  the  intention  of  right¬ 
fully  fulfilling  our  Lord’s  will.  Our  Orders  have  all  been 
imperfect;  they  have  none  of  them  been  really  Catholic 
because  they  have  been  the  Orders  of  a  divided  Church. 
Let  us  approach  one  another,  each  recognizing  our  own 
failures  rather  than  being  too  anxious  to  dwell  on  the 
imperfections  of  others. 

But  as  regards  the  future  let  us  do  all  we  can  to  make 


REUNION 


292 

the  situation  regular,  and  to  make  our  Orders  Catholic 
and  representative  of  the  whole  Church.  Let  us  arrange, 
therefore,  that  in  each  consecration  of  a  bishop  in  any 
Church  there  shall  be  a  bishop  from  the  other  Church  or 
Churches  that  thus  join  together  to  take  part  in  the  con¬ 
secration.  This  we  should  do  for  two  reasons:  The  first 
is  that  the  meaning  of  the  Apostolical  Succession  in  the 
Church  is  (as  we  have  maintained)  not  that  it  is  necessary 
for  the  validity  of  Orders,  but  that  it  is  an  external  mark 
of  the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  Church.  This  mutual 
participation,  therefore,  in  the  consecration  of  bishops  will 
be  the  sign  that  we  are  one  body  and  not  many  separated 
ones.  The  second  reason  is  that  if  there  has  been  any 
defect  in  the  past  either  in  our  own  Orders  or  in  those  of 
any  other  Church,  we  desire  to  remedy  it  in  the  future,  and 
that  if  there  are  any  who  are  weak  and  overscrupulous 
we  may  do  all  that  is  necessary  to  overcome  these  scruples. 
It  is  a  Christian  rule  to  do  all  that  is  reasonable  to  soothe 
the  scrupulous.  If  any  member  of  our  Church  doubts 
about  the  validity  of  Swedish,  or  Danish,  or  Moravian 
Orders,  he  will  remember  that  if  an  English  bishop  takes 
part  in  the  consecration  of  all  these  Churches  these  defects 
will  be  remedied  in  the  future.  In  the  same  way,  if  any 
Greek  or  Swede  or  Jansenist  doubt  about  the  Anglican 
position  he  will  know  that  a  representative  of  his  own 
Church  is  always  helping  to  remedy  it.  And  this  will  be 
done  without  any  loss  of  respect  on  either  side,  and  in  the 
manner  best  calculated  to  bring  the  two  Churches  into  real 
friendship  with  one  another. 

There  are  various  other  things  on  which  we  differ,  some 
more,  some  less  important.  With  the  exception  of  one 
point  on  which  I  shall  have  to  speak  in  a  moment,  they  are 
none  of  them  such  as  should  prevent  Reunion.  Let  us 
recognize  that  the  customs  of  different  Churches  must  be 
different.  We  know  quite  well  that  we  are  not  going  to 
change  our  own  uses  and  customs,  and  it  is  as  unreasonable 
as  it  is  unwise  that  we  should  expect  others  to  do  so.  If 
we  once  begin  to  multiply  our  conditions  we  shall  never 
do  anything.  It  will  always  be  possible  to  find  something 
further  which  someone  will  want  changed.  On  the  other 


THE  MORAVIANS 


293 

hand,  if  all  these  Churches,  instead  of  being  in  a  state  of 
antagonism,  are  united  to  one  another,  the  thoughts  and 
life  of  each  will  penetrate  the  other.  Each  will  learn  of  the 
other,  and  a  more  truly  Catholic  Christianity  will  be 
built  up. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  review  our  relations  with  each 
of  these  groups,  but  I  would  say  something  more  particularly 
concerning  the  Moravian,  the  Scandinavian,  the  Eastern 
Orthodox,  and  the  Roman  Churches. 

I  would  like  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  Moravians, 
as  it  will,  I  think,  illustrate  the  position  that  I  would  wish 
to  see  taken  up.  There  has  been  considerable  discussion 
between  us  and  them,  and  a  committee  of  the  Lambeth 
Conference  reported  that  the  Orders  of  the  Moravians 
were  not  certain.  As  a  result  the  Lambeth  Conference 
of  1908  laid  down  somewhat  elaborate  proposals  by  which 
we  should  confer  Orders  on  the  Moravians.  I  am  not 
surprised  that  no  action  has  resulted.  No  action  ever  will 
result  from  such  one-sided  proposals.  The  Moravians 
might  quite  well  reply,  “  Your  Orders  are  not  so  certain 
that  we  care  to  put  ourselves  in  such  a  position  as  you 
propose.”  But  if  the  action  were  reciprocal,  if  we  were 
to  agree  together  mutually  to  recognize  one  another’s  Orders, 
if  we  were  further  to  say  that  as  a  sign  of  our  reunion,  and 
with  the  purpose  of  preventing  any  doubts  in  the  future, 
we  should  agree  that  a  Moravian  bishop  should  take  part 
in  Anglican  consecrations,  and  an  English  bishop  in  Moravian, 
there  would  be  none  of  that  assumption  of  ecclesiastical 
superiority  on  our  part  which  is  as  unseemly  in  us  as  it  is  in 
the  Church  of  Rome. 

At  the  present  time  English  influence  is  stronger  in 
Scandinavia1  and  among  the  Scandinavian  Churches  than 

1  On  these  Churches  see  especially  The  National  Church  of  Sweden, 
by  the  late  Bishop  John  Wordsworth;  The  Church  of  England  and 
the  Church  of  Sweden.  Report  of  the  Commission  appointed  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury;  an  article  by  the  Rev.  Yngve  Brilioth 
in  the  Church  Quarterly  Review  for  April,  1920,  on  “The  Church  of 
Sweden  in  its  relation  to  the  Anglican  Church.”  I  have  to  express 
my  personal  thanks  for  information  as  regards  Sweden  to  Dr. 
Brilioth,  as  regards  Norway  to  the  Rev.  Mikail  Hertzberg,  of  Kris- 
tiania,  as  regards  Denmark  to  an  old  friend  of  mine,  Dr.  Floystrup, 
of  Copenhagen. 


REUNION 


294 

it  has  been  at  any  other  period  in  recent  history.  There 
is,  too,  a  considerable  American  influence  coming  from  the 
large  number  of  Scandinavians  who  have  found  a  home  in 
the  United  States.  It  must  be  recognized,  however,  that 
that  influence  is  only  partially  that  of  the  Church  of  England ; 
it  is  largely  Nonconformist,  or  perhaps  rather  Undenomi¬ 
national.  While  there  are  some  in  the  different  National 
Churches  whose  sympathies  are  with  the  historical  claims 
of  the  Church  of  England  as  of  their  own  Church,  there  are 
probably  a  large  number  who  are  more  definitely  what  we 
must  call  (for  want  of  a  better  term)  Protestant.  While 
a  few  in  Norway  and  Denmark  desire  to  see  the  restoration 
of  the  Apostolic  Succession,  there  are  many  who  are  in¬ 
different,  and  possibly  a  majority  who  would  fear  it  as 
tending  towards  Romanism.  The  Swedish  Church  cares 
for  its  historical  position,  and  its  correct  Orders,  but  it 
would  always  be  with  the  express  understanding  that  a 
correct  succession  is  not  necessary  for  valid  Orders,  and 
that  no  such  rule  should  cut  them  off  from  communion 
with  the  other  Lutheran  Churches  which  have  not  episcopal 
Orders.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  definite  movement 
in  America  for  the  restoration  of  an  Episcopal  organization 
to  the  Scandinavian  Churches  of  the  United  States. 

The  nearest  to  us  at  the  present  time  in  organization  and 
tradition  is  the  Church  of  Sweden,  and  I  know  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  formally  enter  into  communion  with  that 
Church  at  any  rate.  It  will  have  to  be  understood,  however, 
that  they  reserve  their  freedom  of  intercommunion  with 
non-episcopal  Churches,  and  that  they  are  free  to  retain 
their  own  customs.  That  does  not  mean  that  in  every  case 
they  desire  to  do  so.  There  are  some  points  on  which  there 
has  been  criticism  by  members  of  the  English  Church — 
for  example,  their  customs  as  regards  Confirmation,  and 
the  absence  of  a  diaconate.  There  is  criticism  also  in 
Sweden  on  these  points.  But  if  you  attempt  to  make 
conditions  on  any  of  them  you  will  defeat  your  whole 
purpose.  We  are  not  going  to  change  our  customs  for  the 
sake  of  Reunion,  neither  will  they. 

Let  me  take  an  instance — Confirmation.  I  am  surprised 
•  to  see  that  it  is  now  being  proposed  that  we  should  insist 


CONFIRMATION 


295 

upon  Confirmation  as  a  condition  of  Reunion.1  I  am  quite 
certain  that  if  we  are  going  to  do  that  sort  of  thing  we  may 
as  well  give  up  talking  about  Reunion  at  all.  We  have 
a  custom  of  Confirmation  in  the  Church  of  England,  which 
we  believe  to  be  scriptural  and  wholesome.  It  has  certain 
characteristics.  It  is  administered  by  bishops.  Its  matter 
consists  of  laying  on  of  hands.  It  is  administered  for  the 
most  part  to  adolescents  of  about  the  age  of  fifteen.  This 
custom  is,  I  believe,  most  healthy.  I  much  hope  that  we 
shall  not  change  it.  We  have  a  rule  also  in  our  Church 
for  our  own  members  that  the  normal  condition  of  admission 
to  the  Holy  Communion  is  to  have  been  confirmed.  That, 
too,  I  believe  to  be  a  most  healthy  ecclesiastical  discipline. 
But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  propose  that  we  should 
require  other  Churches  to  adopt  our  customs  as  a  condition 
of  Reunion. 

Just  consider  the  variety  of  customs  with  regard  to 
Confirmation  in  the  different  branches  of  Christendom. 
According  to  the  Roman  Church  the  matter  of  the  Sacra¬ 
ment  is  not  laying  on  of  hands  but  the  chrism.  The  bishop 
stretches  forth  his  hand  over  those  to  be  confirmed,  but 
does  not  lay  hands  on  them.  The  ordinary  minister  of 
Confirmation  is  a  bishop,  but  the  Canon  Law  gives  a  con¬ 
siderable  list  of  circumstances  in  which  it  may  be  conferred 
by  a  priest,  although  the  chrism  must  always  be  consecrated 
by  a  bishop.  The  ordinary  age  of  Confirmation  is  some¬ 
what  younger  than  in  the  Church  of  England,  but  I  believe 
always  over  seven.  In  the  Orthodox  Church  of  the  East 
the  ordinary  minister  of  Confirmation  is  the  priest,  the 
matter  is  the  chrism,  and  the  rite  is  performed  on  infants 
at  the  time  of  their  Baptism.  The  Lutheran  Churches  lay 
more  stress  on  Confirmation  than  any  other  branch  of  the 

1  So  Bishop  Gore;  see  the  Church  Times,  March  19,  1920.  “I 
will  say  only  one  word  more,  and  it  is  this :  I  do  wish  the  Lambeth 
Conference  of  old,  when  it  promulgated  what  was  called  the  Lambeth 
Quadrilateral,  and  talked  about  the  two  Sacraments,  had  made  it 
quite  plain  that  in  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  they  included  Con¬ 
firmation.  I  am  quite  sure  that  we  are  set  to  guard  the  sacredness 
of  that  Sacrament.  I  am  quite  sure  that  in  no  circumstances  should 
we  be  justified  in  what  is  constantly  suggested — that  is,  an  indis¬ 
criminate  admission  of  people  to  the  Holy  Communion  unconfirmed. 
People  do  not  really  realize  how  tremendous  is  the  authority,” 
and  so  on. 


REUNION 


296 

Church,  but  they  lay  stress  on  the  teaching  rather  than 
the  sacramental  side,  and  make  it  the  occasion  of  very 
careful  preparation.  It  is  an  important  part  of  their 
ecclesiastical  system,  but  even  in  the  Churches  which  are 
episcopal  the  bishop  is  not  the  necessary  minister,  and  the 
prayer  rather  than  the  laying  on  of  hands  is  the  necessary 
part  of  the  service.  There  is  variety  of  custom  about  the 
laying  on  of  hands.  Now  surely  with  this  great  variety 
of  customs  it  is  not  reasonable  to  impose  any  particular 
point  on  others  as  a  necessary  condition  of  Reunion.  We 
must  each  recognize  the  customs  of  the  other,  and  it  is 
probable  that  different  Churches  if  united  will  learn  much 
from  intercourse  with  one  another. 

But  now  another  obstacle  to  Reunion  has  been  found. 
It  is  asserted  by  some  that  Confirmation  must  be  looked 
upon  as  an  essential  condition  of  ordination.1  That  is,  I 
am  inclined  to  think,  somewhat  too  orthodox.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  Roman  Church,  since  the  Council  of  Trent, 
has  made  Confirmation  one  of  the  requisites  of  ordination, 
and  that  it  is  now  a  part  of  the  Canon  Law,  just  as  we 
make  it  a  necessary  condition  of  Communion;  also  in  those 
Churches  where  Confirmation  is  administered  at  the  time 
of  Baptism,  all  who  are  ordained  have  been  necessarily 
confirmed.  These  are  wholesome  and  proper  rules  for 
any  Church  to  make.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  say 
that  all  these  things  are  necessary  and  essential,  and  to  do 
so  is  to  teach  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  older  theologians. 
For  instance,  in  the  supplement  of  the  Summa,  Theologica 
it  is  argued  that  Baptism  is  an  essential  for  anyone  who  is 
to  be  ordained,  but  that  Confirmation,  although  fitting,  is 
not  necessary.2  There  is,  I  think,  a  tendency  of  a  certain 
section  of  the  English  Church  to  be  far  more  orthodox  than 
the  most  orthodox,  to  be  enamoured  of  their  own  correct- 

1  So  Bishop  Hall,  of  Vermont  ( The  Apostolic  Ministry  :  A  Charge 
delivered  at  the  Annual  Convention  of  the  Diocese.  1910.  Longmans, 
Green  and  Co.) :  “  It  certainly  would  not  now  be  possible  to  secure 
the  general  consent  of  the  bishops  to  a  consecration  to  the  Episcopate 
or  to  a  conditional  ordination  to  the  priesthood  without  the  candi¬ 
date  being  first  confirmed.” 

2  Summa  Theologica,  Supplementum,  Quaest  XXXV.,  Art.  IV. : 
“  Quanquam  maxime  conveniens  sit,  ut  qui  ordinem  suscipiunt 
sint  confirmati,  hoc  tamen  necessarium  non  est.” 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH 


297 

ness,  to  desire  to  impose  whatever  they  do  on  others, 
and  to  forget  that  there  has  been  in  the  Christian  Church 
very  great  variety  of  custom,  and  that  unless  we  recognize 
that  no  Reunion  of  Churches  is  possible. 

These  remarks  will  apply  equally  strongly  as  regards  our 
relations  to  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Church.  Unless  both 
Churches  recognize  so  much  no  intercommunion  or  Reunion 
is  possible.  Each  Church,  while  perhaps  tenacious  of  many 
of  its  own  customs,  must  learn  to  respect  those  of  the  other. 
The  Greek  will  not  give  up  their  use  of  the  chrism  in  Con¬ 
firmation,  or  their  reverence  for  ikons,  or  their  other  customs 
which  we  may  be  inclined  to  criticize.  We,  on  the  other 
hand,  do  not  intend  to  administer  Confirmation  in  any  other 
way  than  we  do  at  present  or  to  change  our  customs.  But 
it  may  be  quite  possible  for  each  of  us  to  learn  some  things 
of  the  other  in  the  future. 

There  are  three  main  points  on  which  explanation  and 
recognition  are  necessary. 

The  first  is  the  filioque  clause.  This  is  a  point  on  which 
we  are  in  the  wrong,  but  on  which  agreement  will  not  be 
difficult.  There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  question  of  doctrine. 
Here  a  formula  of  concord  has,  I  think,  been  attained. 
We  are  able  to  accept  mutually  the  language  of  St.  John 
of  Damascus  as  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  phraseology 
both  of  the  East  and  West.  The  West  can  assert  that  it 
does  not  mean  to  imply  that  there  are  two  beginnings  or 
first  principles  in  the  Godhead,  the  East  can  recognize  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds  from  the  Father  through  the  Son. 
Such  an  explanation  may  satisfy  either  side.1  The  further 
question  of  the  interpolation  of  the  Creed  may,  I  believe, 
be  solved  equally  satisfactorily.  Let  us  frankly  and 
definitely  confess  that  the  interpolation  was  irregular  and 
unauthorized,  and  let  us  be  ready  when  we  meet  in  a  united 
Council  to  join  in  repeating  the  uninterpolated  Creed;  but 
we  may  reasonably  ask  that  in  our  own  formularies  we 
should  use  those  Creeds  to  which  we  are  accustomed.  What 
seems  to  me  forbidden  is  for  anyone  to  impose  such  an 
interpolated  Creed  on  others  as  essential. 

The  second  point  is  the  united  recognition  of  Orders. 

1  See  above,  p.  181. 


REUNION 


298 

We  should,  of  course,  be  ready  to  give  any  explanation  for 
which  we  are  asked,  and  to  exhibit  both  the  regularity  of 
our  succession  and  the  sufficiency  of  our  formularies,  but 
we  must  make  it  quite  clear  that  the  only  condition  on 
which  Reunion  or  intercommunion  in  any  form  is  possible 
is  that  our  Orders  should  be  looked  upon  as  sufficient.  On 
the  other  hand  we  are  anxious  for  the  sake  of  cementing 
the  union  between  the  Churches  and  to  avoid  any  occasion 
for  offence  that  an  Eastern  bishop  representing  the  Oecu¬ 
menical  Patriarch  in  England  should  take  part  in  episcopal 
consecrations  here,  and  an  English  bishop  at  Constantinople 
should  in  the  same  way  take  part  in  consecrations  in  the 
Eastern  Church. 

The  third  point  is  the  union  in  the  Sacrament  of  the 
Eucharist.  On  this  point  we  must  agree  that  no  definition 
or  formulary  is  of  any  universal  authority.  We  must  be 
prepared  to  say  that  we  each  accept  the  doctrine  and  inten¬ 
tion  of  the  other  as  implied  in  our  Liturgies  as  adequate, 
and  that  neither  Church  wishes  to  impose  on  the  other 
either  its  statements  of  doctrine  or  its  denials.  We  recog¬ 
nize  that  the  term  “  Transubstantiation,”  which  is  used  by 
the  Greek  and  denied  by  us,  is  capable  of  considerable 
variety  of  explanation,  and  that  no  formula  will  ever  be 
sufficient  to  define  or  explain  so  great  a  mystery. 

And  then,  lastly,  there  are  our  relations  with  the  Church 
of  Rome.  It  must  be  frankly  confessed  that  so  far  as  we 
can  see  there  is  no  possibility  at  present  of  any  different 
relations  than  those  now  prevailing.  Whenever  any  change 
is  made  by  the  Church  of  Rome  it  is  almost  invariably 
towards  greater  rigidity  and  uniformity.  It  less  and  less 
shews  any  desire  to  approach  other  religious  bodies  or 
to  make  any  accommodation  with  modern  thought,  and 
in  its  claims  to  jurisdiction  it  opposes  a  barrier  which  is,  as 
far  as  can  be  seen,  insurmountable  against  all  other  Churches. 

Let  me  lay  down  the  conditions  which,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
are,  from  our  point  of  view,  essential. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  the  recognition  of  our  Orders.  The 
decision  of  Leo  XIII.  in  the  Bull  Apostolicae  Curac  has 
stopped  all  possible  approaches  between  the  two  Churches. 
We  know  that  we  are  a  sufficient  and  adequate  branch  of 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ROME 


299 

the  Catholic  Church,  and  until  that  is  fully  and  frankly 
recognized  no  rapprochement  is  possible. 

Then,  secondly,  it  must  be  recognized  that  as  we  are  a 
sufficient  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church,  we  are  competent 
to  regulate  our  own  affairs,  to  have  our  own  Liturgies, 
rites,  and  ceremonies,  and  are  not  subject  to  the  regulations 
which  the  Church  of  Rome  sees  fit  to  impose  upon  itself. 

And  then,  thirdly,  there  is  the  Roman  claim  to  juris¬ 
diction.  That  is  the  fundamental  point  on  which  all 
difficulties  turn.  I  do  not  think  that  for  many  English 
Churchmen  the  special  doctrinal  points  which  have  bulked 
so  large  in  controversy  in  the  past  would  seem  so  serious 
now.  What  is  wrong  is  not  so  much  or  necessarily  the 
teaching  of  the  Roman  Church  as  the  claim  that  it  makes 
to  impose  it  on  others.  Supposing,  for  example,  that  the 
Church  of  France  were  to  become  a  separate  and  inde¬ 
pendent  Church,  repudiating  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome,  but  preserving  all  its  customs  and  teaching,  I  do 
not  think  that  there  would  be  any  good  reason  on  our  part 
for  not  entering  into  communion  with  it  provided  we,  too, 
were  left  free  to  preserve  our  customs.  Experience  seems 
to  shew  that  it  would  be  quite  possible  so  to  organize  the 
Church  of  England  that  all  members  of  the  Roman  Church 
now  living  in  England  might  have  in  communion  with  it 
the  religious  system  (apart  from  the  Pope)  to  which  they 
are  accustomed.  In  any  reunited  Church  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  would  be  recognized  as  primus  among  the  Patriarchs, 
with  the  honour  and  position  we  would  grant  to  other 
Patriarchs. 

But  the  one  definite  fact  which  prevents  all  approach  to 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  claim  to  jurisdiction  and  the 
demand  for  submission.  The  result  of  our  historical  inquiry 
is  to  demonstrate  that  it  was  this  claim  to  exercise  authority 
over  other  Churches  that  was  the  fundamental  cause  of 
the  first  great  Christian  schism,  and  it  is  this  which  dis¬ 
tinguishes  the  Church  of  Rome  from  all  other  Churches  at 
the  present  day.  In  no  other  case  is  there  this  difficulty. 
No  other  Church  claims  as  a  condition  of  Reunion  sub¬ 
mission.  Other  Churches  are  prepared  to  approach  one 
another  on  equal  terms.  To  us,  as  to  other  Churches, 


3oo 


REUNION 


submission  is  impossible.  Unless  this  claim  is  given  up, 
unless  a  change  takes  place  in  the  Church  of  Rome  itself, 
negotiations  are  impossible. 

These  last  paragraphs  I  have  inserted,  not  because  I 
believe  that  there  is  any  chance  of  what  is  suggested  happen¬ 
ing,  but  because  I  believe  that  it  is  our  duty,  in  considering 
a  question  such  as  that  of  Reunion,  to  survey  our  relations 
with  all  other  Christian  bodies  and  to  attempt  to  discover 
the  fundamental  points  on  which  we  are  separated  from 
them  or  agree  with  them. 

Ill 

The  next  group  that  we  have  to  consider  consists  of 
those  National  Churches  which  have  not  an  episcopal 
organization.  They  are  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scot¬ 
land,  the  Lutheran  Church  of  Germany,  the  Dutch  Church, 
and  the  Reformed  Churches  of  Switzerland.  We  may 
confine  ourselves  under  present  conditions  to  the  Presby¬ 
terian  Church  of  Scotland. 

Twice  in  history  has  Reunion  been  attempted  between 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Church  of  Scotland,  on  the 
basis  of  restoring  episcopacy  to  Scotland,  and  on  both 
occasions  it  failed.  In  1610  Spottiswoode  and  two  other 
presbyters,  presbyterially  ordained,  were  sent  to  England 
to  receive  episcopal  consecration.  They  were  not  first 
ordained  deacons  or  priests.  Those  who  were  consecrated 
by  Spottiswoode  and  his  colleagues  were  not  episcopally 
ordained  before  consecration,  and  the  Presbyterian  ministers 
who  were  in  their  parishes  in  1610  were  never  asked  or 
expected  to  receive  episcopal  ordination.  Under  Charles  II. 
Archbishop  Sharpe  and  his  colleagues  were  ordained  deacons 
and  priests  before  they  were  consecrated,  but  some  of  those 
who  were  consecrated  by  him  were  not  ordained  deacons 
and  priests,  and  Presbyterian  ministers  were  left  in  posses¬ 
sion  of  their  parishes  without  any  form  of  reordination. 

It  is  necessary  to  point  out  that  some  ambiguity  of 
principle  underlies  the  action  of  the  Church  of  England  in 
consecrating  Spottiswoode.  The  motives  which  prompted 
it  might  be  twofold.  On  the  one  hand,  they  might  mean 
a  recognition  of  Presbyterian  ordinations,  on  the  other  side 


PRESBYTERIAN  ORDERS 


301 

the  action  might  be  justified  by  the  principle  of  ordination 
per  saltum.  The  conferment  of  the  episcopal  office  implies 
the  conferment  of  all  other  Orders,  so  that  it  is  not  neces¬ 
sary  to  ordain  first  to  the  diaconate  and  the  priesthood. 
I  do  not  feel  that  there  is  any  disadvantage  in  such 
ambiguity.  If  we  once  attempt  to  agree  on  our  motives 
for  action  as  well  as  on  our  actions,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
in  an  impossible  position.  It  is  quite  honourable  that  one 
ordained  a  presbyter  by  Presbyterians  should  be  willing 
for  the  sake  of  Christian  unity  to  be  consecrated  a  bishop, 
although  he  feels  that  his  Presbyterian  Orders  are  valid; 
and  he  can  do  so  without  any  loss  of  self-respect,  although 
a  somewhat  scrupulous  Anglican  may  feel  assured  that  all 
will  be  right  in  the  future  because  ordination  per  saltum 
is  sufficient.1 

I  would  suggest,  then,  that  the  precedent  of  1610  should 
be  followed.  The  two  Churches  should  formally  and 
solemnly  each  recognize  the  Orders  of  the  other  Church  as 
valid,  and  that  each  Church  should  give  to  the  ministers 
of  the  other  Church  authority  to  minister  to  its  people. 
Then  should  follow  the  restoration  of  episcopacy  and  of 
episcopal  ordination  for  the  sake  of  unity.  Those  who  are 
presbyters  of  the  Church,  and  who  are  elected  to  hold  the 
office  of  bishop  in  the  future,  will  be  consecrated  by  bishops 
of  the  Anglican  and,  it  may  be  hoped,  other  bodies.  It 
would  be  right  that  in  all  ordinations  in  the  future  those 
ordained  with  Presbyterian  Orders  should  join  with  those 
ordained  with  Episcopal  Orders  in  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
and  that  thus  the  unity  of  the  two  Churches  should  be 
formally  asserted. 

No  doubt  criticisms  will  be  made  against  this  proposal. 
Some  people  will  argue,  What  need  for  these  changes  ? 
Are  not  Presbyterian  Orders  good  enough  ?  If  you  admit 
that  those  ordained  with  Presbyterian  Orders  are  validly 
ordained  what  need  of  episcopacy  ?  To  that  I  would 
reply  that  it  is  one  thing  to  say  that  Orders  are  valid:  it 
is  another  thing  to  say  that  they  are  regular  according  to 

1  On  Orders  conferred  per  saltum  see  the  article  of  Monseigneur 
Duchesne,  quoted  on  p.  284  above.  See  also  Bishop  J.  Wordsworth, 
Ordination  Problems  and  Answer  of  the  Archbishops  of  England  to 
the  Apostolic  Letter  of  Pope  Leo  XII.,  p.  24. 


302 


REUNION 


Catholic  rule,  that,  as  we  have  seen,  the  purpose  and  end 
of  the  rules  of  the  Catholic  Church  were  to  promote  order 
and  unity,  and  the  departure  from  them  has  been  the  fruitful 
cause  of  disunion.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  spirit  of 
Christian  unity  to  be  ready  to  conform  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Church ;  it  is  the  opposite  to  that  spirit  which  creates 
dissensions.  Unless  you  have  a  unity  of  Orders  you  will 
not  obtain  any  real  unity. 

Supposing  that  you  have  a  Church  in  Scotland  organized 
on  a  Presbyterian  model:  its  members  will  be  naturally 
attached  to  the  form  of  Church  government  to  which  they 
are  accustomed.  When  they  go  elsewhere  they  will  take 
with  them  their  Presbyterian  model,  will  organize  churches 
on  that  form,  and  will  inevitably  form  a  separate  and 
inharmonious  element  in  religious  life.  This  is  just  what 
has  happened  in  all  the  English-speaking  colonies.  In 
them  the  three  most  important  religious  bodies  are  the 
Church  of  England,  the  Presbyterians,  and  the  Roman 
Catholics.  That  is  the  case,  for  example,  in  Australia. 
These  divisions  correspond  roughly  with  the  three  different 
nationalities.  We  must,  I  am  afraid,  put  on  one  side  the 
Roman  Catholics  at  present.  If  we  take  the  other  two 
we  shall  find  that  their  persistent  separation  is  a  great 
cause  of  religious  weakness.  In  Australia,  at  any  rate, 
this  is  felt,  and  there  is  considerable  desire  for  the  two  bodies 
to  be  united  on  terms  such  as  those  that  I  have  suggested. 
Here  we  can  see  the  evil  of  the  persistency  of  hostile  tradi¬ 
tions.  What  is  necessary  is  to  unite  the  two  traditions  in 
one  society  which  will  inherit  all  that  is  best  in  both. 

It  is  said  next  that  the  events  of  1610,  and  still  more 
those  of  Charles  II.’s  reign,  are  not  good  precedents.  From 
one  point  of  view  the  precedent  is  good,  from  another  it 
is  not.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  we  can  raise  any  serious 
objection  to  the  ecclesiastical  arrangement  which  satisfied 
the  English  Church  in  the  reign  of  James  I.  But  where 
the  precedent  is  a  bad  one  and  must  not  be  followed  is 
this.  In  both  cases  episcopacy  was  imposed  upon  a 
Church  from  above  and  from  outside.  Any  such  movement 
would  always  be  disastrous.  No  union  between  two 
Churches  which  is  merely  engineered  by  the  civil  power, 


THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND 


303 

or  is  arranged  by  leading  divines  without  having  popular 
life  behind  it,  is  of  any  value.  Still  less  will  this  be  the 
case  when  the  Church  of  another  country  imposes  itself 
upon  a  body  like  the  Church  of  Scotland.  Leading  men 
may  take  the  initiative,  but  Reunion  must  be  the  Reunion 
of  the  whole  Church.  The  Church  of  another  country 
may  make  the  approach,  but  it  must  not  be  with  any  feeling 
of  superiority.  It  must  rather  say,  Let  us  consider  what 
are  the  traditional  principles  of  Church  Order;  let  us  try 
to  agree  together;  and  let  us  unite  on  that  basis,  each  giving 
the  other  what  it  can. 

Now  in  Scotland  there  is  going  on  a  great  movement 
of  Reunion.  The  old  sectarianism  of  the  eighteenth  and 
early  nineteenth  century  is  fast  disappearing.  The  different 
Presbyterian  bodies  have  agreed  together  to  give  up  those 
distinctive  marks  on  which  they  prided  themselves,  and  it 
is  probable  that  in  a  few  years  there  will  be  one  united 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland,  and  that  it  will  be  in  a 
very  real  sense  a  National  Church.  But  the  spirit  of  Reunion 
will  have  been  roused.  There  will  be  a  real  movement 
towards  a  larger  unity.  The  historical  and  Catholic  feelings 
of  the  Scottish  people  will  be  stirred.  They  will  want  to 
be  in  more  complete  union  with  their  own  past.  No  one 
can  feel  that  either  the  Roman  Catholic  or  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Scotland  represents  the  whole  of  the  historical 
elements  in  Christianity  in  that  country.  Presbyterianism 
asserted  and  established  an  element  that  had  been  sup¬ 
pressed.  But  neither  does  Presbyterianism  represent  the 
complete  Christian  tradition.  Those  who  have  gone  so 
far  on  the  path  of  Reunion  will  want  to  go  farther,  and  will 
desire  to  be  united  with  other  Christian  bodies  and  to  build 
up  a  larger  Christian  unity.  At  any  rate,  however  much 
divines  may  discuss  with  one  another,  true  unity  will  only 
come  when  the  Christian  peoples  are  stirred. 

Reunion  must  be  the  work  of  the  Scottish  people  them¬ 
selves.  There  is  a  Scottish  Episcopal  Church  with  which 
we  are  in  communion,  and  any  negotiations  proposed  for 
Reunion  with  the  Presbyterians  in  Scotland  must  come 
from  them.  They  share  in  the  inheritance  of  a  Church 
which  was  episcopal  from  1610  to  1638.  They  represent 


REUNION 


304 

a  distinct  element  in  Scottish  religious  history.  They  are 
Scottish  and  not  English.  The  United  Church  of  Scotland 
should  be  distinctively  Scottish.  It  is  often  asserted  that 
the  most  distinctive  feature  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  is 
the  General  Assembly.  If  that  be  so,  there  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  not  be  preserved  in  the  future.  The  due  rights 
of  the  presbyters  would  always  have  to  be  asserted  and 
guaranteed.  If  it  is  desirable  that  Scotland  and  England 
should  be  united  on  the  basis  of  the  Historical  Episcopate, 
it  is  certainly  not  to  be  desired  that  there  should  be  any 
excessive  uniformity,  or  that  distinctive  national  charac¬ 
teristics  should  be  lost. 

Greater  unity  can  only  come  because  the  spirit  of  unity 
is  stirring  among  the  people,  but  it  is  the  duty  of  theologians 
to  be  ready  to  say  how  any  movement  that  arises  may 
express  itself. 


IV 

We  now  come  to  the  most  vital  part  of  our  problem, 
Home  Reunion.  Is  there  any  possibility  of  restoring  a 
united  Church  of  England,  one  which  might  include  the 
vast  majority  of  religious  people  in  the  country,  and  might 
combine  together  our  broken  Christian  traditions  ? 

I  believe  that  that  is  the  desire  of  the  greater  number 
of  people  among  us.  There  are,  of  course,  some  who  are 
devotedly  attached  to  the  particular  religious  community 
to  which  they  belong,  and  feel  a  certain  antagonism  to  all 
others;  but  if  a  vote  could  be  taken  of  the  nation  it  would 
express  without  any  hesitation  its  desire  to  do  away  with 
Christian  disunion.  Some  are  more,  some  less  religious, 
few,  I  think,  are  anti-religious,  but  they  are  impatient  of 
Christian  divisions,  and  entirely  indifferent  to  all  the  points 
of  theological  controversy.  I  imagine,  further,  that  if  they 
were  given  free  action  they  would  carry  out  their  will  with 
entire  indifference  to  all  the  many  scruples  which  Church- 
people  and  Nonconformists  alike  would  feel.  They  would 
quite  ruthlessly  sweep  away  everything  which  interfered 
with  their  will.  I  would  even  go  farther  and  say  that  it 
is  conceivable  that  something  of  this  sort  may  happen. 
If  we  on  our  part  and  the  Nonconformists  on  theirs  are 


THE  DESIRE  FOR  UNITY 


305 

too  slow,  if  we  continue  to  put  every  obstacle  in  the  way 
that  an  excessive  scrupulousness  may  suggest,  a  popular 
movement,  working  with  the  authority  of  Parliament, 
might  take  the  matter  up,  might  sweep  away  a  great 
deal  that  it  might  be  wiser  to  retain,  and  might  leave 
those  who  were  not  prepared  to  accept  their  somewhat 
drastic  reforms  isolated  and  helpless. 

Such  a  proceeding  would  be,  I  think,  most  unfortunate. 
A  democratic  movement  is  often  right  in  what  it  aims  at, 
and  almost  invariably  wrong  (unless  wisely  instructed) 
in  the  way  in  which  it  seeks  to  attain  its  end.  A  democracy 
has  little  knowledge  or  experience  in  statesmanship.  It 
is  our  duty  to  recognize  the  demand  and  think  out  the 
principles  on  which  Reunion  may  be  possible.  If  the 
motive  power  come  from  a  popular  demand,  this  directing 
influence  must  come  from  above.  Nor  have  I  any  doubt 
that  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  so  many  men  of  different 
religious  belief  have  shewn  themselves  ready  to  make 
great  sacrifices  in  the  cause  of  Reunion  is  not  only  that 
they  are  themselves  stricken  in  conscience,  but  also  are 
responsive  to  this  half-expressed  desire  that  there  is  in 
people’s  minds. 

There  is  a  real  desire  for  union,  but  in  the  case  of  Reunion 
at  home  the  problem  has  some  elements  of  greater  difficulty, 
because  a  closer  unity  is  necessary  in  a  National  Church 
than  between  two  bodies  in  different  countries,  such  as  the 
English  and  the  Eastern  Churches.  There  is  no  particular 
inconvenience  in  considerable  variety  of  ecclesiastical 
custom  between  two  bodies  living  some  thousands  of  miles 
apart.  But  if  there  is  too  great  variety  between  the 
Churches  of  two  neighbouring  parishes,  it  will  cause  incon¬ 
venience  and  perplexity.  We  have  thus  the  problem  not 
only  of  creating  ecclesiastical  unity,  but  of  creating  within 
this  unity  a  Church  which  will  have  a  real  unity  of  life, 
without  necessarily  exhibiting  a  too  rigid  uniformity.  We 
may  recognize  that  the  differences  of  customs  in  different 
religious  bodies  and  also  in  different  ecclesiastical  parties 
correspond  in  many  cases  to  religious,  social,  and  intellectual 
needs,  and  that  if  we  were  to  destroy  variety  in  creating 

unity  we  should  weaken  disastrously  the  religious  life  of 

20 


REUNION 


306 

the  country.  But  this  variety  must  be  compatible  with 
the  vigorous  life  of  real  organic  unity. 

With  this  double  aim  then — unity  and  variety — I  will 
lay  down  somewhat  dogmatically,  the  principles  which  I 
believe  we  ought  to  follow. 

1.  The  first  point,  in  harmony  with  what  we  have  said 
already,  must  be  that  we  are  ready  as  a  condition  of  Reunion 
to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  Orders  and  Sacraments  of 
those  who  have  desired  earnestly  and  solemnly  to  carry  out 
the  intention  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  as  exhibited  to 
us  in  the  New  Testament — that  is,  of  all  who  ordain  with 
laying  on  of  hands  and  prayer,  who  baptize  with  water 
and  the  use  of  the  words  ordered  by  our  Lord,  who  celebrate 
the  Holy  Communion  as  our  Lord  directed,  and  with  the 
unfailing  use  of  the  words  of  institution. 

It  must  be  recognized  that  in  some  religious  bodies  there 
has  been  great  carelessness  about  such  things.  There  are 
some  that  have  been  careless  and  indifferent  about  the 
administration  of  Baptism,  and  also  about  Holy  Com¬ 
munion.  Their  ordinations  have  been  irregular,  not  only 
according  to  our  rules,  but  according  to  any  rule.  I 
remember  reading  the  account  of  the  ordination  of  a  dis¬ 
tinguished  Nonconformist  divine,  in  which  the  chief  part 
of  the  ceremony,  if  it  was  reported  correctly,  consisted  in 
the  ordained  shaking  hands  with  the  assembled  ministers. 

Now  such  irregularities  seem  to  me  to  exhibit  a  spirit 
of  self-assertion  and  innovation  contrary  to  the  teaching  of 
the  Gospel.  If  we  are  to  recognize  as  a  sufficient  basis  of 
union  a  real  intention  to  fulfil  the  commands  of  our  Lord 
and  the  customs  of  the  Apostles,  we  must  have  clear  and 
certain  evidence  that  that  has  been  done.  We  cannot 
recognize  slovenliness  and  indifference. 

2.  Then,  secondly,  if  two  religious  bodies  have  thus 
united  in  their  corporate  capacity,  each  should  solemnly 
recognize  the  ministers  of  the  other  and  give  them  a  com¬ 
mission  under  the  new  conditions.  The  Presbyterian,  the 
Wesleyan,  and  the  Congregational  ministers  in  this  country 
may  have  an  adequate  commission  given  them  from  their 
own  body:  they  have  no  commission  from  ours.  That  we 
should  give  them.  It  may  remain  for  further  consideration 


EPISCOPAL  ORDINATION 


3<>7 

how  we  should  do  it.  I  would  only  say  that  it  should  not 
be,  in  my  opinion,  with  laying  on  of  hands.  That  has 
already  been  done.  The  essence  of  a  Sacrament  lies  in  the 
prayers  of  the  Church.  These  prayers  have  been  offered 
up  with  the  Apostolic  custom  of  the  laying  on  of  hands. 
I  do  not  think  that  should  be  repeated.  The  Sacramental 
part  of  the  rite  has  been  performed.  But  the  ecclesiastical 
rules  have  not  been  fulfilled.  The  essential  part  of  them 
is  the  ordination  by  a  bishop.  That  being  a  rule  of  the 
Church,  the  Church  can  dispense  with  it,  and  without  it 
can  confer  authority  on  those  already  ordained.  In  the 
same  way  the  other  communities  with  which  we  unite  may 
recognize  our  Orders  and  give  authority  in  their  own 
community  to  us. 

3.  The  rule  of  the  Church  in  the  future  must  in  all  cases 
be  episcopal  ordination.  Some  members  of  the  reunited 
Churches  will  be  consecrated  bishops  in  the  manner  suggested 
in  the  case  of  the  Presbyterians.  They  will,  of  course,  take 
part  in  other  consecrations  and  ordinations  in  the  future, 
and  those  who  have  been  recognized  as  presbyters  will 
take  part  in  the  laying  on  of  hands  in  ordination.  And  I 
would  say  this  also  to  those  who  are  thus  united  with  us. 
If  the  Church  as  a  whole  recognizes  that  their  Orders  and 
ministration  have  been  valid  in  the  past,  they  must  be 
ready  to  satisfy  in  the  future  the  demand  of  the  more 
scrupulous.  They  must  be  careful,  as  Christian  unity  and 
charity  alike  demand,  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  make  their 
Orders  and  Sacraments  regular  in  the  future. 

On  the  other  hand,  care  must  be  taken  that  the  full 
constitutional  rights  of  presbyters  as  of  the  laity  are 
guaranteed.  We  do  not  want  any  possibility  of  a  return 
to  prelacy. 

4.  It  will  be  apparent  that  such  a  reunion  cannot  take 
place  without  much  theological  discussion  as  to  the  customs 
and  ordinances  of  the  United  Church.  There  must  be  a 
certain  definite  unity  of  life  and  worship.  In  particular, 
the  celebration  of  the  Sacraments  must  be  carefully  guarded 
and  regulated.  There  must  be  one  Baptism.  Variety  of 
ceremonial  will  be  allowed,  but  there  must  be  one  service 
for  Holy  Communion,  one  such  for  Confirmation,  one 


REUNION 


308 

Ordination  service  for  all.  The  unity  will  be  guaranteed 
by  the  bishop,  and  by  the  meeting  of  all  the  ministers  of 
religion  and  representatives  of  the  laity  in  ruri-decanal 
conferences  and  diocesan  synods. 

5.  But  within  this  unity  there  must  be  recognized  a 
considerable  variety  of  religious  custom.  Wherever  a 
Church  is  really  the  Church  of  a  whole  people,  there  must 
be  in  any  developed  society  room  for  variety.  The  great 
Medieval  Church  which  at  one  time  seemed  to  have  solved 
the  problem  of  unity  without  uniformity  presents  a  varied 
aspect  of  religious  custom.  Besides  the  old-established 
parochial  system,  there  were  the  churches  of  the  religious 
orders  with  their  various  appeals  to  popular  feeling.  Later 
it  failed  because  its  rulers  had  become  unspiritual  and 
therefore  could  not  assimilate  the  popular  religious  move¬ 
ments.  The  Church  of  England  has  failed  to  be  a  complete 
National  Church  because  it  has  been  too  anxious  to 
mould  all  piety  on  one  model.  With  more  breadth  of 
sympathy  it  might  have  absorbed  the  Presbyterians  at 
the  Restoration.  If  it  had  had  rather  more  spiritual  life  it 
might  have  retained  the  Wesleyans.  It  has  only  succeeded 
in  harmonizing  the  vigorous  life  of  Evangelicals  and  Trac- 
tarians  by  looking  on  a  great  deal  of  ecclesiastical  law  as 
obsolete.  There  are  at  the  present  time  many  various 
forms  of  worship  and  different  types  of  piety  within  the 
Church  of  England.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  pressure 
being  exerted  by  some  ecclesiastical  authorities  to  restrain 
this  variety.  It  must  be  quite  clear  that  if  the  Church  is 
to  be  in  any  way  national  this  variety  must  be  allowed, 
and  if  there  is  to  be  any  real  movement  towards  Reunion 
this  variety  will  be  increased.  The  problem  of  statesman¬ 
ship  in  the  future  must  be  the  combination  of  variety  of 
worship  with  unity  and  order.  There  must  be  a  standard 
type  of  worship  which  will  be  required  in  every  parish 
church.  There  must  be  great  variety  allowed  in  any 
district  or  congregational  church.  There  must  be  a  definite 
element  of  Congregationalism,  but  it  must  be  an  orderly, 
and  not  a  disorderly,  Congregationalism.  The  separated 
Churches  which  are  united  with  us  will  find  their  unity  in 
taking  part  and  sharing  in  all  Church  synods  and  other 


UNITY  NOT  UNIFORMITY 


309 

corporate  Church  life,  in  common  activities,  in  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  authority  of  the  diocesan  bishop,  but,  subject 
to  such  points  as  are  agreed  upon  as  essential,  they  will 
preserve  the  freedom  of  their  own  customs. 

It  seems  to  me  that  thus,  also,  by  a  full  and  complete 
Reunion  we  shall  be  able  to  solve  our  own  problems.  The 
fundamental  cause  of  disunion  in  the  Church  of  England 
is  that  we  have  not  decided  or  even  attempted  to  decide 
what  is  essential  and  what  is  not  essential  for  Church  unity. 
If  we  have  to  face  the  problem  of  including  in  the  unity 
of  the  one  Church  religious  societies  like  that  of  the 
Wesley ans  which  will  desire  to  preserve  their  own  distinc¬ 
tive  religious  life,  we  shall  not  feel  any  greater  difficulty 
in  regulating  the  freedom  which  Ritualists  or  Evangelicals 
may  demand  for  themselves.  Whether  as  a  result  of  the 
change  which  is  proposed  there  would  be  a  tendency  to 
greater  unity  or  greater  variety  we  cannot  tell.  I  believe 
that  with  the  varied  tastes,  dispositions,  and  antecedents 
of  modern  life,  there  might  be  even  a  greater  tendency  to 
variety  of  worship,  but  if  certain  principles  of  unity  have 
been  accepted  that  need  not  create  any  great  difficulty. 

Towards  such  unity  in  variety  we  have  made  already 
considerable  preparations.  The  fundamental  condition  of 
Church  life  in  the  present  age  must  be  that  every  congrega¬ 
tion  must  have  a  real  voice  in  the  regulation  of  divine 
service.  The  first  step  to  that  has  been  made  in  the  creation 
of  the  Church  Roll,  the  Church  Meeting,  the  Church  Council. 
A  step  has  been  made  also  towards  a  moderate  Congrega¬ 
tionalism  by  allowing  everyone  to  enrol  himself  in  the 
parish  in  which  he  is  a  regular  worshipper.  The  further 
step  will  be  the  allowance  of  non-parochial  Congregation¬ 
alism.  Let  me  take  an  illustration.  The  Church  of  the 
Cowley  Fathers  in  Oxford  plays  a  definite  part  in  our 
religious  life,  and  enables  those  who  wish  it  to  have  a  type 
of  service  which  would  certainly  not  be  suitable  for  an 
ordinary  parish.  I  do  not  see  in  any  way  why  the  Con¬ 
gregational,  the  Presbyterian,  the  Wesleyan  Churches 
should  not  equally  take  their  place  in  the  common  Church 
life,  provided  that  there  is  a  unity  of  faith  and  order. 

The  problem,  then,  before  the  religious  life  of  England  is 


3io 


REUNION 


this:  Are  we  prepared  to  lay  aside  our  antagonisms  and 
differences,  to  join  together  in  common  council,  to  agree 
together  on  the  essential  basis  of  unity,  and  on  that  basis 
to  build  up  a  united  Church  combining  our  many  differences 
which  shall  correspond  to  the  varying  needs  of  the  religious 
life  of  the  day  ? 

V 

We  are  now  approaching  the  end  of  our  task,  and  I  will 
shortly  state  my  conclusions.  There  have  been  two  theses 
that  it  has  been  my  purpose  to  maintain  in  these  lectures. 
The  first  is  the  conception  of  the  Church.  I  have  tried  to 
shew  that  part  of  our  Lord’s  purpose  was  to  found  a  religious 
society  in  which  His  followers  would  be  bound  together  in 
the  ties  of  brotherhood,  and  that  this  society  it  is  which 
has  come  to  be  called  the  Christian  Church.  As  such  it  is 
an  essential  part  of  Christianity.  We  studied  its  charac¬ 
teristics  in  the  early  centuries.  The  basis  of  faith  was  the 
acceptance  of  Christ.  That  belief  was  formulated  in  a 
Creed  which  did  not  bind  the  Church  by  minute  or  burden¬ 
some  dogmatic  statements.  Our  Lord  had  instituted  Sacra¬ 
ments,  as  St.  Augustine  reminds  us,  few  in  number.  His 
Church  had  an  organization,  developed  out  of  the  ministry 
appointed  by  our  Lord  Himself,  which  maintained  unity 
and  freedom.  We  have  seen,  too,  how  the  unity  of  this 
Church  was  broken,  and  we  found  the  causes  in  the  desire 
to  exercise  authority  over  others,  in  the  breaking  down  of 
the  Catholic  conception  of  Church  order,  in  the  rise  of 
sectarianism,  and  in  the  attempt  made  by  theologians  and 
parties  in  the  Church  to  impose  their  particular  tenets  on 
the  Church  as  a  whole. 

Our  second  thesis  concerned  the  question  of  Orders.  We 
have  discussed  the  question  as  to  what  constitutes  a  valid 
or  correct  ordination.  We  have  found  theories  prevailing 
which  tend  to  make  Sacraments  depend  upon  the  correct 
fulfilment  of  certain  mechanical  requirements.  Some¬ 
times  it  is  stated  that  in  ordination  a  certain  character  or 
power  is  conferred  by  the  correct  use  of  the  right  matter 
and  form.  If  the  correct  form  of  words  is  not  used  then 
the  Sacrament  is  of  no  avail.  The  other  theory  makes 


CONDITIONS  OF  REUNION 


3II 

Orders  depend  upon  the  possession  of  the  Apostolic  Suc¬ 
cession.  For  example,  if  there  is  a  flaw  in  the  consecration 
of  Archbishop  Parker,  the  English  Church  is  without 
Sacraments  or  Orders.  Both  these  theories  have  seemed 
to  us  mechanical,  magical,  unreal,  and  inconsistent  with 
the  spirit  of  Christianity.  We  found  also  that  they  were 
not  held  in  the  early  Christian  centuries.  The  idea  of  the 
character  was,  indeed,  a  later  development  of  a  certain 
teaching  of  St.  Augustine,  but  was  really  inconsistent  with 
his  theology.  The  Early  Church  recognized  the  value  of 
the  succession  of  Christian  bishops  as  a  guarantee  of  the 
correct  traditions  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  had  no 
theory  of  succession  by  ordination.  What  was  believed 
was  that  the  Sacraments  were  duly  administered  because 
they  were  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church  and  of  Christ. 
The  only  conditions  for  which  there  is  any  real  authority 
in  the  New  Testament  is  that  ministers  were  appointed' 
by  laying  on  of  hands  and  prayer.  It  was  natural  and 
right  that  the  Church  should  make  regulations  for  the 
future  administration  of  the  Sacraments  and  should  appoint 
the  bishop  as  the  proper  minister  of  ordination,  but  the 
Sacraments  depend  not  on  the  ministry,  but  on  the  Church, 
and  within  the  Church,  if  they  are  administered  according 
to  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  and  with  the  inten¬ 
tion  of  doing  what  Christ  and  His  Apostles  did,  they  are 
valid. 

Whether  these  two  theses  are  correct  I  must  now  leave 
to  the  judgement  of  critics. 

On  the  basis  of  these  I  have  proposed  a  practical  policy  for 
Reunion  which  consists  of  two  main  principles.  The  first 
is  that  as  a  step  to  and  as  a  part  of  the  process  of  Reunion 
we  must  recognize  the  validity  of  all  Orders  conferred  by 
the  laying  on  of  hands  with  the  intention  of  fulfilling  the 
command  of  our  Lord  and  the  teaching  of  His  Apostles, 
and  that  also  all  other  Sacraments  thus  performed  are 
valid.  The  second  proposal  is  the  establishment  of 
Episcopacy,  and  the  rule  of  episcopal  ordination  and  con¬ 
secration  as  the  recognized  common  basis  of  Church  order. 

In  favour  of  such  a  policy  I  would  put  to  you  this.  It 
is  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  our  own  Church 


REUNION 


312 

and  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  we  can  recognize  nothing 
as  necessary  for  salvation,  and  therefore  for  the  due  ad¬ 
ministration  of  these  Sacraments  which  are  generally  neces¬ 
sary  for  salvation,  that  cannot  be  proved  by  Scripture. 
Nothing  in  the  New  Testament  will  authorize  us  to  say 
that  a  particular  minister  or  a  particular  form  of  words  is 
necessary  for  ordination.  Any  religious  body  being,  as  it 
is,  a  part  of  Christ’s  Church,  which  has  done  what  He  com¬ 
manded  with  full  intent  of  carrying  out  His  will,  must  be 
considered  to  have  received  all  that  He  promised  in  His 
Sacraments.  But  the  Church  had  authority  given  to  it, 
and  in  accordance  with  that  authority  it  has  instituted  the 
Catholic  order  which  we  have  inherited.  That  ministry 
made  for  Christian  unity,  and  the  neglect  of  it  has  been 
both  the  cause  and  the  result  of  dissension.  A  necessary 
part,  therefore,  of  the  restoration  of  unity  must  be  the 
restoration  of  the  Catholic  Church  order. 

Moreover,  those  who  are  ordained  to  minister  in  that 
body  to  which  they  belong  have  no  commission  from  others 
or  from  the  Church  as  a  whole.  It  will,  therefore,  be  a 
necessary  condition  of  Reunion  that  each  body  should 
give  a  full  recognition  to  the  ministers  of  the  other.  For 
that  the  authority  of  the  Church  is  adequate.  To  those 
who  have  dispensed  with  or  failed  to  carry  out  our  Lord’s 
command,  I  do  not  see  that  we  can  give  any  authority 
or  recognition,  but  for  what  is  a  breach  of  ecclesiastical 
rule  the  authority  of  the  Church  will  be  sufficient  to 
condone  it.  The  Church,  therefore,  will  not  be  exceeding 
its  prerogatives  in  recognizing  the  Orders  of  ai.y  separated 
body  of  Christians  as  the  condition  of  Reunion  provided 
they  have  been  sacramentally  performed — that  is,  with 
laying  on  of  hands  and  prayer. 

Now  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  will  be  said  that,  even  if  the 
whole  Church  might  accomplish  this,  it  would  not  be  com¬ 
petent  for  the  Church  of  England  alone.  We  must  not 
act  independently  of  the  Church  of  Rome  or  of  the  Eastern 
Church,  and  it  will  be  alleged  that  if  we  do  anything  of 
this  sort  we  shall  damage  the  possibility  of  future  Reunion 
on  a  larger  scale.  Such  an  argument  seems  to  me  to 
minimize  unduly  the  authority  of  our  own  Church,  nor 


OUR  AUTHORITY  SUFFICIENT 


3i3 

do  I  believe  that  if  in  this  way  we  were  to  create  a 
National  Church,  or  even  a  large  and  united  Church  for 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world  as  a  whole  on  the  basis  of  the 
traditional  Church  order,  we  should  at  all  injure  our 
prospects  of  further  Reunion  in  East  or  West.  Our  separa¬ 
tion  from  other  branches  of  Christ’s  Church  is  none  of  our 
own  doing,  but  we  have  acted,  and  our  claim  is  that  we  are 
competent  to  act,  as  a  complete  and  autonomous  Church. 
As  such  we  have  introduced  many  changes  and  consider¬ 
able  reform.  We  are  competent  to  act  subject  to  the  revi¬ 
sion,  if  it  should  ever  be  held,  of  an  oecumenical  synod. 
Nothing  else  can  have  any  authority  over  us.  The  Church 
of  Christ  finds  itself  faced  with  grave  disasters,  and  it  is 
for  us  to  take  the  lead  in  initiating  such  a  policy  as  may 
repair  these  disasters. 

In  particular,  we  have  organized  ourselves,  and  been 
compelled  to  organize  ourselves,  apart  from  the  Church  of 
Rome.  We  have  done  so  because  it  has  made  claims  and 
imposed  conditions  which  are  inconsistent  with  Catholic 
Christianity.  What  authority  can  we  give  to  a  Church 
which  has  refused  to  recognize  our  Orders  ?  Nor  do  I 
believe  that  any  such  action  of  ours  would  ultimately  injure 
our  position.  Rome  does  not  recognize  us  at  present. 
Such  action  which  would  leave  our  Orders  quite  sound  in 
the  technical  sense  would  do  nothing  to  make  it  more 
difficult  for  her  to  do  so.  In  any  case  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  the  most  progressive  of  the  Catholic 
Churches,  boldly  to  look  facts  in  the  face,  and  to  revise 
our  own  theories  in  accordance  with  historical  criticism. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  this  will  in  any  way  injure  us  in 
relation  to  the  Eastern  Church.  The  Eastern  Church  is 
very  friendly  towards  the  Church  of  England  at  the  present 
time,  for  various  reasons,  political  and  other;  but  it  looks 
at  things  from  a  different  point  of  view  from  what  we  do. 
To  many  members  of  the  Church  of  England  the  gap 
between  it  and  Protestant  Nonconformity  seems  a  large 
one;  it  does  not  seem  so  to  the  Greek  Church.  They  look 
at  Western  Christendom  from  outside.  It  differs  so  much 
from  them  that  the  smaller  shades  of  differences  do  not 
appeal  to  them  to  such  an  extent  as  some  imagine.  They 


REUNION 


314 

know  what  a  small  factor  in  American  religious  life  is 
played  by  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  What  they 
would  look  forward  to,  if  they  changed  from  their  present 
position  of  isolation,  would  be  not  a  union  merely  between 
themselves  and  us,  but  a  union  with  a  far  larger  body  of 
Christians.  As  one  of  them  expressed  it  to  me,  what  we 
desire  is  a  great  union  of  all  Christians  against  the  power 
of  materialism.  It  would  not  be  much  more  difficult  for 
them  to  recognize  Presbyterian  Orders  than  Anglican  Orders. 
They  might  very  probably  recognize  both  on  the  condition 
of  regulation  in  the  future.  You  must  not  imagine  that 
other  religious  bodies  think  as  much  of  Anglican  Orders  as 
some  of  us  do.  They  would  be  far  more  likely  to  follow 
our  lead  in  a  wise  and  effective  policy,  than  to  shew  any 
particular  respect  for  us  if  in  a  timid  attitude  of  deference 
to  them  we  continued  in  our  present  attitude  of  weak 
isolation  from  all  those  Christians  around  us. 

Then  next  I  would  put  it  you  to  that  the  onb,  practical 
policy  for  Reunion  will  be  one  based  on  the  mutual  recogni¬ 
tion  of  Orders.  We  know  what  our  feelings  are  in  the 
Church  of  England;  we  will  certainly  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Church  of  Rome  unless  Rome  is  prepared  to 
recognize  our  Orders.  It  is  exactly  the  same  with  regard 
to  the  Eastern  Church.  If  they  were  to  come  to  us  and 
say  that  our  Orders  were  invalid  or  doubtful,  and  that  a 
condition  of  Reunion  would  be  that  our  clergy  should  be 
reordained,  do  you  suppose  that  we  should  pay  any  attention 
to  them  ?  If  that  be  so,  cannot  we  understand  that  that 
may  be  exactly  the  position  in  regard  to  the  Presbyterians  ? 
Do  you  suppose  that  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland 
would  accede  to  any  proposal  for  Reunion  unless  we  were 
prepared  to  recognize  the  validity  of  their  Orders  and 
ministry.  And  that  recognition  would  have  to  be  mutual. 
There  are,  in  fact,  two  ways  in  which  Christian  Churches 
at  the  present  time  may  approach  one  another.  There  is 
the  method  of  ecclesiastical  superiority.  We  can  receive 
others  coming  to  us  seated  in  our  chair.  That  will  be  a 
quite  fatal  method  to  pursue.  The  second  method  is  that 
we  advance  towards  others  without  any  such  feeling  of 
superiority,  conscious  of  our  own  rather  than  of  others* 


THE  LAMBETH  CONFERENCE  315 

imperfections,  ready  to  consult  with  them  as  to  what  we 
might  do  in  order  to  make  Christianity  more  effective  and 
powerful.  If  we  are  prepared  to  approach  one  another 
on  the  basis  of  religious  equality,  our  work  may  not  be 
fruitless. 

You  will  remember  that  when  we  were  studying  the 
theology  of  St.  Augustine  we  noticed  how  in  the  face  of 
a  great  problem  of  Reunion  the  Christian  Church  wholly 
modified  its  policy.  The  African  Church  had  rebaptized 
and  reordained  heretics  and  schismatics.  It  changed  its 
practice.  I  suggested  that  that  should  be  a  model  for  us 
at  the  present  time.  We  are  faced  with  a  great  problem 
of  Reunion.  We  have  a  theory  of  Orders,  or  rather  some 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  have  a  theory  of  Orders, 
which  will  make  Reunion  impossible,  and  which  is,  I  believe, 
without  sufficient  historical  support.  We  need  the  same 
boldness  as  the  Church  then  exhibited.  It  has  been  objected 
to  me  that  the  position  is  not  the  same,  because  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries  all  schismatics  had  episcopal 
Orders.  St.  Augustine,  it  is  maintained,  would  never  have 
recognized  the  Orders  of  those  not  episcopally  ordained. 
That  misses  the  point.  The  analogy  that  I  wish  to  make 
is  that  the  Church  of  Africa  had  the  courage  to  recognize 
facts  and  give  up  an  untenable  theory,  and  that  we  also 
should  have  the  honesty  to  recognize  that  our  theories  are 
equally  untenable.  But  I  will  go  farther  and  say  that, 
judging  from  the  paramount  importance  which  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  ascribed  to  Reunion,  and  his  strongly  Evangelical 
theory  of  Sacraments  and  ministry,  there  would  have  been 
no  want  of  boldness  in  his  policy  at  the  present  day,  and 
that  if  he  had  been  confronted  by  the  situation  which  is 
before  us  now  he  would  not  have  allowed  a  theory  of  Orders 
which  he  did  not  hold  to  hinder  Christian  unity. 

There  is  shortly  to  be  held  a  meeting  of  the  Lambeth 
Conference  of  Bishops  of  the  Anglican  Communion  from  all 
parts  of  the  world.  It  is  recognized  that  the  most  urgent 
question  before  them  will  be  this  question  of  Reunion. 
Everywhere  in  the  Christian  world  there  is  a  desire  to  do 
away  with  the  present  state  of  disorder  and  chaos.  Every¬ 
where  people  are  anxious  to  come  together  and  look  for  a 


REUNION 


316 

lead.  If  that  body  were  to  be  prepared  to  lay  down  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  Reunion  the  mutual  recognition  of 
Orders,  demanding  nothing  more  than  the  correct  fulfilment 
of  our  Lord’s  commands  and  instructions,  and  the  general 
acceptance  of  episcopal  Orders  for  the  future  and  remit 
the  matter  to  the  several  local  Churches  with  power  to  act, 
in  the  next  few  years  great  progress  might  be  made.  If 
no  change  takes  place  in  our  attitude,  and  no  action  can 
be  taken  after  this  conference  meets  until  another  con¬ 
ference  meets  ten  years  hence,  nothing  but  futility  will 
result  from  our  talk. 

Much  will  depend  upon  the  spirit  in  which  different 
bodies  come  towards  one  another,  and  I  would,  as  a  con¬ 
clusion,  say  something  to  the  Nonconformists  on  one  side 
and  to  the  Anglo-Catholics  on  the  other. 

I  would  remind  the  Nonconformists  of  the  intense  bitter¬ 
ness  which  has  been  stirred  up  during  the  last  fifty  years 
by  their  political  action  as  regards  in  particular  education 
and  disestablishment.  For  the  last  twenty  years  the  aim 
of  the  Church  of  England  has  been  to  secure  equality  of 
opportunity  in  religious  education.  They  have  been  fight¬ 
ing  for  liberty,  liberty  to  teach  their  faith,  not  liberty  to 
prevent  religious  teaching.  They  have  found  themselves 
until  quite  recently  opposed  in  every  direction.  They  have 
been  ready  to  grant  full  freedom  of  religious  teaching  to 
Nonconformists,  if  they  could  have  similar  freedom  them¬ 
selves,  but  they  have  found  themselves  opposed  by  a 
union  of  nonconformity  and  sectarianism,  and  the  result 
has  been  most  disastrous  to  the  religious  and  moral  well¬ 
being  of  the  country.  In  the  last  few  years  there  has  come 
in  in  some  quarters  a  new  spirit,  a  desire  for  co-operation 
in  religious  education.  If  that  spirit  prevails  the  several 
Churches  will  come  very  much  nearer  one  another. 

The  second  point  is  that  of  disestablishment.  The 
bitterness  that  has  been  exhibited  by  the  attacks  on  the 
Welsh  Church,  and  the  determination  to  deprive  it  of  much 
of  its  endowments,  has  left  behind  it  deep  resentment.  We 
have  not,  except  incidentally,  discussed  the  relations  of  Church 
and  State.  The  problem  would  have  extended  our  task  too 
far.  What  it  is  necessary  now  to  emphasize  is  that  very 


DISESTABLISHMENT 


317 

varied  relations  have  prevailed  from  time  to  time  between 
Church  and  State,  and  there  will  probably  be  variety  in  the 
future.  It  is  not  possible  to  lay  down  any  general  principle. 
It  must  be  recognized  that  wherever  there  is  a  strong  National 
Church  holding  a  large  property  the  State  will  demand 
to  exercise  some  control  over  it.  The  State  will  always 
claim  authority  “  in  all  causes  as  well  ecclesiastical  as 
civil  ”  which  concerns  the  property,  the  rights,  and  the 
liberty  of  subjects  of  the  Crown,  and  as  Nonconformists 
have  often  found  it  will  claim  the  right  of  revising  the 
decisions  of  an  ecclesiastical  body.  Every  Nonconformist 
Church  at  the  present  time  is  to  a  certain  extent  established. 
It  must  be  recognized,  further,  that  some  form  of  national 
recognition  of  religion  will  always  be  demanded  by  the 
religious  conscience  of  the  nation.  If  anyone  approaches 
the  problem  of  Reunion  with  the  statement,  “  I  would 
never  be  a  member  of  an  Established  Church,”  he  is  putting 
his  own  prejudices  in  the  place  of  Christianity.  That  is 
not  the  spirit  in  which  any  progress  can  be  made.  If  we 
are  to  discuss  any  such  matters  with  profit  we  must  lay 
aside  our  prejudices.  We  must  be  prepared  to  discuss  our 
differences  without  as  a  preliminary  insisting  upon  the 
acceptance  of  our  own  conclusions.  There  must  be  no 
more  of  the  spirit  of  self-will. 

On  the  other  side  there  are  certain  English  Churchmen 
who,  whenever  any  proposal  for  Reunion  is  made,  immedi¬ 
ately  begin  to  assert,  and  in  a  somewhat  noisy  manner, 
their  principles.  That  is,  of  course,  legitimate,  although 
they  have  the  habit  of  doing  it  in  a  somewhat  domineering 
fashion.  But  when  they  state  that  if  the  voice  of  the 
Church  to  which  they  belong  arrives  at  a  conclusion  with 
which  they  disagree  they  will  not  be  loyal  to  it,  that  is  the 
spirit  of  Protestantism  and  sectarianism  in  its  worst  form. 
The  fruitful  cause  of  division  has  always  been  that  indi¬ 
viduals  and  parties  have  refused  to  listen  to  the  voice  of 
the  Church.  If  we  believe  in  the  principles  which  are 
supposed  to  dominate  Catholic  Christianity  we  must  be 
prepared  to  accept  the  decisions  at  which  the  Church 
arrives.  Let  us  defend  our  convictions  with  any  learning 
or  ability  that  we  may  possess.  That  is  right  enough. 


REUNION 


3i8 

But  to  begin  a  controversy  by  refusing  to  be  bound  by 
any  decision  that  we  dislike,  and  to  threaten  disruption  if 
we  do  not  get  our  own  way,  is  to  show  a  want  of  faith  in 
the  reasonableness  of  our  own  cause,  and  a  want  of  faith 
in  God’s  guidance  of  His  Church. 

But  the  future  of  religion  in  England,  and  the  possibility 
of  creating  one  National  Church,  does  not  depend  upon 
these  men  only.  There  is,  I  believe,  in  the  country  a 
strong  desire  for  Christian  unity.  Thoughtful  men  of 
every  religious  body  recognize  how  much  Christianity  is 
weakened  by  our  divisions.  They  feel  that  if  all  the  power 
and  earnestness  which  we  at  present  display  in  strengthening 
our  separate  communities  against  one  another  were  to  be 
concentrated  in  preaching  the  Christian  message  to  the 
world,  Christian  love  and  Christian  faith  would  begin  to 
abound.  The  world  needs  that  we  should  strengthen 
spiritual  principles  against  materialism  and  selfishness.  To 
that  end  we  must  put  aside  self-will  and  self-assertion;  we 
must  be  ready  to  listen  and  to  learn,  as  well  as  to  teach. 
Faith,  humility,  and  charity  must  be  the  weapons  with 
which  we  attempt  to  recreate  the  sense  of  brotherhood  and 
of  divine  things  in  the  world. 


INDEX 


Abercius,  Bishop  of  Hieropolis, 
104,  270 

Absolution,  forms  of,  258 
Abyssinian  Church,  the,  177 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  35,  49 

- credibility  of,  55 

- methods  of,  58 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  Council  of,  184 
Alexandria,  177 

—  Bishop  of,  how  appointed,  102 

—  list  of  Bishops,  96 
Ambrosiaster,  98  n. 

Ancyra,  Canons  of,  132  n. 

Anglican  Church,  the,  215,  239 

—  orders,  247  ff. 

—  ordinations,  283 
Anglo-Catholic  schism,  225 
Anicetus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  104 
Antioch,  list  of  Bishops,  96  n. 
Apocrypha,  the,  229 
Apostles,  29,  30,  61  ff. 

—  the  laying  on  of  hands  by,  57, 
82 

—  teaching,  the,  51 

—  the,  our  Lord’s  commission  to 
them,  38 

—  their  authority,  69 

—  teaching  of,  89 

—  and  prophets  at  Jerusalem,  70 
Apostle,  signs  of  an,  52 
Apostolic,  21 1 

—  in  what  sense  is  the  Church,  133 

—  Canons,  89,  135 

—  Church  Order,  89,  103  n. 

—  ministry,  215 

—  Succession,  the,  viii,  124  ff.,  172, 
256,  261,  292.  See  Succession 

—  Succession,  St.  Augustine  and 
the,  160 

Apostolicae  Curae,  the  Bull,  250, 
266,  298 

Apostolical  Constitutions,  the,  89, 
129 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  263 
Arles,  Council  of,  114 
Armenian  Church,  the,  175 

- decree  on  union  with  the,  249 

Asia,  bishops  in,  96  n. 

Athanasian  Creed,  the,  227,  233 
Athanasius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria, 
229,  237 


Augsburg  Confession,  the,  198  n., 
234 

Augustine,  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury,  285 

—  Bishop  of  Hippo,  20,  118  n.,  197, 
210,  282,  315 

- his  ignorance  of  Greek,  139 

—  his  style,  139 

—  his  influence,  139 

—  influence  on  Western  thought, 
180 

—  creates  Western  theology,  179 

—  his  Platonism,  141 

—  a  theologian,  not  a  statesman, 

I4I  .  . 

—  De  Civitate  Dei,  146 

—  origin  of  his  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  140  ff. 

—  his  doctrine  of  the  Church, 
140  ff.,  170 

- grace  and  the  Church,  149 

—  on  the  holiness  of  the  Church, 

155 

—  on  the  unity  of  the  Church,  151 

—  and  the  Christian  ministry, 

169  ff. 

—  his  theory  of  Orders,  161 

—  the  ministry  and  Sacraments,  171 

—  on  rebaptism  and  reordination, 

156 

—  and  the  Apostolic  Succession,  160 

—  and  the  Church  of  Rome,  147, 
167 

—  the  Church  and  the  civil  power, 
163 

Archontes,  67 

Authority  of  the  Church,  37,  39 
Bangor,  285 

Baptism,  39  ff.,  5L  79.  21 9 

—  adopted  by  our  Lord,  39 

—  by  blood,  109 

—  normal  to  Christian  life,  39 

—  it  is  Christ  who  baptizes,  15 

—  formula  of,  259 

—  the  ministry  of,  80 

—  of  John,  40 

—  a  social  rite,  39 
Baptist,  the,  39,  40 

Bartlet,  Professor  Vernon,  104,  123 
Battifol,  Monseigneur  P.,  no 


319 


INDEX 


320 

Bede,  the  Venerable,  285 
Bedjan,  P.,  Lazariste,  176  n. 

“  Believers,”  the,  50 
Bernard,  Dr.  J.  H.,  120  n. 
Bethune-Baker,  Dr.,  17611. 

Bicknell,  Rev.  E.  J.,  231  n. 

Bidding  Prayer,  the,  210 
Bigg,  Dr.  Charles,  176  n. 

Binding  and  loosing,  34 
Bindley,  Dr.  T.  H.,  232 
Birkbeck,  W.  J.,  260 
Bishops,  successors  of  the  Apostles, 
126 

—  lists  of,  96 

—  called  also  presbyters,  65,  97, 

98 

—  how  distinguished  from  pres¬ 
byters,  98 

—  appointed  by  Apostles,  66 

—  election  of,  118,  131 

—  constitutional  position  of  the, 
119 

—  powers  of  the,  118 

—  officers  of  the  whole  Church, 
103  ff.,  120 

—  essential  to  a  church,  115,  116 

—  priests,  deacons,  115,  116 
Bonn  Conference,  183 
Bousset,  Dr.  W.,  16  n. 

“  Branch”  theory  of  the  Church,  [ 

215 

Breaking  of  Bread,  the,  53,  79,  80, 

267 

Brethren,  the,  23,  51 

—  of  our  Lord,  71 

Brightman,  Rev.  F.  E.,  129,  252  n., 
254,  259,  293 

Brilioth,  Rev.  Yngve,  293 

British  Church,  the,  285 

Brotherhood,  42,  46 

Browne,  Robert,  200 

Brownism,  200 

Bulgarian  Church,  the,  179 

Bulletin  Critique,  283 

Burn,  Dr.  A.  E.,  3  n.,  184,  231  n. 

Byzantine  Empire,  123 

—  influence,  177 
Byzantinism,  178 

Caecilian,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  141, 
155 

Callistus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  hi 
Calvinism,  140,  199,  210 
Canon  of  Scripture,  the,  229 
Canons  of  Hippolytus,  9811.,  132 
Canterbury,  Archbishops  of,  160 
Cappadocians,  the,  237 
Cathari,  the,  112 
Catholic,  106  ff.,  210,  240 
Catholicity,  207 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  176,  183,  213 


Character  indelebilis,  the,  162,  257, 
249  n. 

Charisma,  the,  61 
Charismatic,  61  n. 

—  ministry,  the,  84  n. 

Charity:  no  charity  without  unity, 
145 

Charlemagne,  180,  184 
Chazan,  the,  57 

Christ  the  Head  of  the  Church,  76 
Church,  the.  See  also  Ecclesia 

—  the  Word,  n,  77,  78,  224 

—  the  heathen,  12 

—  the  Jewish,  11-13 

—  relation  to  synagogue,  68 

—  of  God,  75 

—  and  our  Lord,  16  ff.,  31,  43 

—  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  24,  26, 
27,  146 

rimitive,  50  ff. 
ow  conceived  by  early  Chris¬ 
tians,  73 

—  growth  of  the,  15,  42,  56  ff. 

—  the  Medieval,  147,  190 

—  becomes  a  state,  190 

—  divisions  of,  174  ff . 

—  relation  to  civil  power,  163 

—  order,  85 

—  the  doctrine  of,  208  ff. 

—  a  visible  society,  108 

—  not  congregational,  78 

—  the  invisible,  151,  197  ff-,  216 

—  the  home  of  the  Spirit,  108,  136 

—  Catholic,  75,  210 

—  unity  of  the,  75,  151,  171,  211 

—  the  holiness  of,  154„  170,  209 

—  the  home  of  salvation,  109,  148 
- charity,  145 

—  not  infallible,  135,  170 

—  corrects  its  errors,  1 72 

—  absence  of  rigidity,  136 

—  the  body,  76 

—  a  building,  76,  77 

—  authority  of  the,  37,  39,  44,  58, 
59,  86,  136 

—  the  living  power  of,  90 

—  the  spirit  of,  137 
I  —  true,  188 

—  theory  of,  188,  189 

—  erroneous  theories  in,  207 

—  the  Catholic  theory,  149 

—  doctrine  of  St.  Augustine,  144 

—  continuity  of  the,  137 

—  the  Catholic,  a  development,  134 

- a  perversion  of  Christianity,  134 

- its  origin,  133 

—  of  England,  196,  224 

—  of  France,  224 

—  of  Rome,  213,  298  ff. 

—  of  Scotland,  224,  300 
Circumcelliones,  the,  143,  164 


INDEX 


321 


Clement  of  Alexandria,  71,  97,  109, 
1 16,  179 

—  Bishop  of  Rome,  66,  100, 104,  124 
Coetus  Sanctorum,  197 

Colet,  Dr.  J.,  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s, 
195.  196 

Communism  of  early  Church,  53 
Communion,  the,  52 

—  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 

80 

Confession  of  Augsburg,  234 

—  Westminster,  234 
Confessions,  multitude  of,  202,  206 
Confessio  Belgica,  19911.,  234 

—  Helvetica  I.,  234 
- II.,  234 

—  Gallica,  234 

Confessor,  need  not  be  ordained,  132 
Confirmation,  81,  294  ff. 
Congregational  schism,  225 
Congregationalism,  89,  105,  200, 
246,  308 

Constantine,  the  Emperor,  123,  142, 
163 

Constantinople,  Creed  of,  232 

—  Council  of,  232 

— •  Latin  conquest  of,  187 
Copts,  the,  177 
Coptic  Church,  the,  259 
Cornelius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  118,  132 
Councils,  Church,  104,  120 

—  general  authority  of,  121,  232 

—  liable  to  err,  166 

—  Aix-la-Chapelle,  184 

—  of  Arles,  142 

—  of  Chalcedon,  183,  213,  232,  233 

—  of  Carthage,  229 

—  of  Constantinople  I.,  232 

—  of  Ephesus,  213 

—  of  Florence,  182,  187,  190,  201, 
209  n. 

—  Lateran  IV.,  201 

—  Nicaea  I.,  231  n. 

—  at  Rome,  142,  313 

—  of  Sardica,  185 

—  of  Toledo  III.;  183 

—  of  Trent,  202,  234 

—  the  Vatican  (1870),  204 
Covenanters,  the,  236 
Creed,  the,  3,  114 

—  interpolations  of  the,  183 

—  the  Nicene,  231  fi. 

—  the  one,  201 

—  the  Oecumenical,  183 
Critical  principles  adopted,  1 7  If. 
Crusades,  the,  187 

Curtis,  Dr.  W.  A.,  202  n. 

Cyprian,  Bishop  gf  Carthage,  104, 
108,  109,  113  n.,  116,  118,  122, 
179 

—  his  influence  on  Augustine,  140 


Cyprian  and  the  Christian  ministry, 
159 

—  the  holiness  of  the  Church,  154 

—  and  rebaptism,  155 

—  on  succession  and  ordination, 
127  n. 

—  his  theory  of  Church  unity,  120 

j  Cyril,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  107,  no, 

'273 

- of  Alexandria,  176,  213 

Dalbus,  M.  Fernand,  248,  283 
Dal  man,  Professor  G.,  19,  34,  35 
Damascus,  50,  56 
Danish  Church,  291,  293 
Deacons,  57,  61 
Decian  persecution,  the,  112 
Decrees  of  Council  of  Trent,  234 
1  Decretals,  Pseudo  Isidorian,  185 

|  193 

i  Diakonia,  52 

!  Didache,  the,  60,  63  n.,  68,  81 
|  Dionysius,  the  Areopagite,  96  n., 

125 

- Bishop  of  Corinth,  96  n.,  104 

Disciples,  the,  27  ff-,  29,  36 
Discipleship,  28,  42,  46 
Discipline  in  the  Church,  82 
Division,  evils  of,  187 
Divisions,  causes  of,  204 
Dollinger,  Dr.,  183 
Donatists,  the,  136,  141 

—  the,  rebaptize  and  reordain,  143, 
155 

—  claim  to  be  disciples  of  Cyprian. 
140 

—  demand  a  pure  Church,  143 
Donatism,  210 

—  a  schism,  not  a  heresy,  142 
Donatists,  the,  without  Christian 

unity,  146 

Donatus,  “  the  Great, ,J  142 
Draw-net,  Parable  of  the,  24 
Duchesne,  Monseigneur  L.,  96  n., 
249,  283 

East  and  West,  schism  of,  170  ff., 
222 

Easter,  rule  of  keeping,  122 
Eastern  Christianity,  its  difference 
from  Western,  139 
—  Orthodox  Church,  the,  297 
Ecce  Homo,  43 
Ecclesia.  See  Church 

—  14,  16,  31  ff-,  74 
Egyptian  Christianity,  1 78 
Eider,  the  Jewish,  67,  68 
Elect,  the,  149 
Ephesus,  Council  of,  213 
Epiclesis,  259,  263 
Epiphanius,  Bishop  of  Salamis,  97 

21 


322 


INDEX 


Episcopacy,  88.  See  also  Bishop 

—  argument  for,  243 

—  origin  of  95  ff.,  97,  99 

—  development  of,  105 

—  monarchical,  95 

—  the  basis  of  Christian  unity,  244 

—  value  of,  269 

Episcopal  ordination,  99  ft.,  254, 
307;  see  also  Ordination 
Episcope,  52 

Erasmus,  195,  196,  197,  201,  202  n. 
Eucharist,  the,  41,  53,  54,  80,  269 
• —  institution  of  the,  270  ff. 

—  the,  commanded  by  our  Lord,  41 

—  minister  of  the,  81 

—  the,  a  religious  ordinance,  272 

—  the,  a  social  rite,  39 

—  the,  a  covenant  rite,  41 

—  the,  doctrine  of  Early  Church, 
273 

—  medieval  doctrine,  274 

—  reformation  doctrine,  275 

—  doctrine  of  Church  of  England, 
276 

Eucharistic  worship,  274 
Eugenius  IV.,  Pope,  249,  263 
Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  237 
Evangelist,  the,  61,  62 
Exposition  of  Faith  of  Chalcedon, 
232 

Felix,  Bishop  of  Aptonga,  141 
Fellowship,  the,  52 
Field,  Dean,  278 
Filioque,  the,  181,  201,  234,  297 
Florence,  Council  of,  182,  187,  190, 
201,  249  n. 

Floystrup,  Dr.,  293 
Forgiveness  of  sins,  in 
“Form”  of  a  Sacrament,  the,  250, 
256 

Forsyth,  Dr.  P.  T.,  311. 

Fournier,  M.  Paul,  186  n. 

France,  Church  of,  299 
Fulham  Conference,  276 

Gelasian  Sacramentary,  259 
General  assembly,  the,  304 
General  council,  authority  of,  232, 
236 

Gentiles  and  Jews,  75,  76 
Gerousia,  67 

Gibson,  Dr.  E  C.  S.,  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,  230  n. 

Gnosticism,  113 

God  not  limited  by  ordinances,  82. 
Gore,  Dr.  Charles,  4,  5  n.,  45,  102 
124,  193  n.,  264,  295 

- on  the  Apostolical  Succession, 

127 

Gospels,  credibility  of  the,  18 


Goudge,  Dr.  H.  L.,  265 
Greek,  Christianity  at  first  Greek, 
179 

—  Church,  the,  179 

—  the  study  of,  197 

—  speaking  Jews,  57 
Gregory  I.,  Pope,  192 
Gregory  VII.,  Pope,  192 
Gregory,  Dr.  C.  R.,  229  n. 

Gregory  of  Tours,  283 
Grocyn,  Fellow  of  New  College,  197 
Gwatkin,  Professor  H.  M.,  57 

Halifax,  Viscount,  247  n.,  248 
Hall,  Dr.  A  C.  A.,  Bishop  of 
Vermont,  296  n. 

Flamilton,  Dr.  H.  F.,  ix,  13,  74 
Harnack,  Professor  A.,  18,  49,  66  n., 
72,  74,  79,  84  n.,  96  n.,  103,  134, 

138 

Haroun-ul-Raschid,  184 
Hatch,  Dr.  E.,  vii,  66  n.,  132  n. 
Hawkins,  Rev.  Sir  John,  49 
Hegesippus,  71,  96  n. 

Hellenism,  17 

Heretics,  the  baptism  and  ordina¬ 
tion  of,  112  ff.,  153 

—  how  joined  to  the  Church,  150 

—  cannot  be  saved,  148 
Hertzberg,  Rev.  Mikail,  293 
High  Priest,  the,  51 

; - used  of  St.  James,  72 

Hincmar  of  Reims,  283 
Hippolytus  (?),  Bishop  of  Portus, 
bishops  successors  of  the  Apos¬ 
tles,  126 

- - m,  136 

Historical  method,  the,  5 
Holiness  of  the  Church,  the,  154 
Holy,  209 

|  —  omitted  in  Creed,  3 
!  —  Spirit,  doctrine  of  the,  181  ff.,  258 
Home  reunion,  304 
Hort,  Dr.  F.  J.  A.,  19  n.,  20  n.,  27  n., 
30  n.,  33,  34,  35,  37,  59  n.,  65  n., 

|  74.  78.  82 

Hyacinthe,  Pere,  218 

j  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  96, 
103,  104  n.,  107  n.,  115,  237,  244 

—  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  186 
Independency,  200 

;  Infallibility,  166  ff.,  171,  204 
j  Inquisition,  the,  236,  274 
Intention  of  a  Sacrament,  the,  250, 
256,  283 

Interpretation  of  Scripture,  230 
Invisible  Church,  197  ff. 

Irenaeus,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  96  n.,  98, 
108,  237 

- on  the  Apostolic  Suc¬ 
cession,  126 


INDEX 


323 


Isidorian  Decretals.  See  Decretals 
Israel,  74 

—  the  old,  7 

—  the  new,  78,  107 

—  of  God,  33,  74 

—  the  spiritual,  13 

Jacobites,  the,  175,  177 
James,  St.,  the  brother  of  our  Lord, 
70,  89 

- of  John,  71 

Jansenists,  the,  290 
Januarius,  letter  to,  168 
Jerome,  St.,  117,  229 
Jerusalem,  the  fall  of,  49,  93 

—  Church  at,  49,  50  ff .,  70 

—  list  of  Bishops,  96  n. 

Jesuits,  the,  203 
Jewish  race,  the,  7 

—  nation,  the,  9 

—  Church,  1 1 

—  origin  of  the  Church,  6  ff . 

John  of  Damascus,  St.,  181,  297 
John,  St.,  son  of  Zebedee,  position 

of,  52,  70 

- a  priest  who  wore  the 

Mitre,  72 

Julian,  the  Emperor,  163 
Jurisdiction,  299 

Kikuyu  controversy,  the,  ix 
Kingdom  of  God,  40 

—  of  the  Messiah,  22 

—  of  the  Son,  24 
Kingdom  of  heaven,  19  ff . 

- in  Psalms  of  Solomon,  9 

- means  Kingdom  of  God,  19 

- Jewish  conception,  9,  10 

- interpretations  of  the,  25 

- the  theocracy,  20 

- divine  rule,  22 

- nationalist  interpretation,  21 

- eschatological  interpretation 

21,  26 

- righteousness,  25 

- eternal  life,  21,  25 

- the  laws  of  the  kingdom,  23 

- a  society,  22 

- the  Church,  20,  147 

- parable  of  the  kingdom,  23 

- disuse  of  phrase,  25 

Khomiakoff,  Alexis  Stepanovich, 
260 

Lacey,  Rev.  T.  A.,  107,  110 
Laity,  rights  of  the,  119 
Lambeth  Conference,  315 
Lateran  Council,  201 
Latham.  Rev.  H..  30  n. 

Latin  conquest  of  Constantinople, 
187 


Laying  on  of  hands,  58,  81  ff.,  249, 
25°.  265,  268,  280,  306,  31 1 
Layman,  a,  might  celebrate  the 
Eucharist,  267 
League  of  Nations,  242 
Leaven,  parable  of  the,  24 
Leipoldt,  Dr.  J.,  229  n. 

Leo  III.,  Pope,  180,  184,  234 
Leo  IX.,  Pope,  186 
Leo  XIII.,  Pope,  250  n.,  251,  263, 
298 

Liddon,  Dr.  H.  P.,  218,  227 
Lightfoot,  Dr.  J.  B.,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  vii,  4,  57,  60  n.,  65  n., 
67,  96  n.,  98,  107  n. 

Linacre,  Fellow  of  All  Souls,  197 
Linus,  first  Bishop  of  Rome,  99 
Liturgies,  the  Christian,  274 
Local  ministry,  the,  61 
Loening,  Dr.  E.,  66  n. 

Loisy,  Mons.  A.,  17,  18,  33,  36  n. 
37  n. 

Loot's,  Professor  F.,  176  n. 

Lord’s  Supper,  the.  See  Eucharist 
- 80 

Lucifer  of  Cagliari,  136,  227 
Luke,  St.,  49 
Luther,  Dr.  Martin,  196 
Lutheran  Church,  the,  239,  300, 
Lutheranism,  198 

Maclean,  Dr.  A.  J.,  Bishop  of  Moray, 
129 

McNeile,  Dr.  A.  H.,  32 
Marcellimus,  letters  of  Augustine 
to,  165 
Marcion,  97 
Mason,  Dr.  A.  J.,  123 
Mass,  Canon  of  the,  278 

—  sacrifice  of  the,  256 
Mathias,  St.,  52 

“Matter  ”  of  the  Sacrament,  250 
Medieval  Church,  the,  190  ff. 
Melkites,  178 

Mensurius,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  141 
Michael  Cerularius,  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  186,  189 
Miltiades,  Bishop  of  Rome,  142 
Ministers  of  the  Church,  1 90 
Ministry,  42,  46 

—  the  Christian,  115  ff. 

—  given  to  Apostles,  39 

—  the  local,  61,  94 

—  the  Missionary,  60  ff.,  94 

—  authority  of  the,  87 

—  its  form  unessential,  242 

—  the  Christian,  St.  Augustine’s 
conception  of,  159 

Missionaries,  the  Christian,  their 
importance,  63 
Mitre  worn  by  St.  John,  72 


1 


324 


INDEX 


Moberly,  Dr.  R.,  5 
Modernist,  the,  237 
Mohammedanism,  177,  178,  187 
Mommsen,  Professor  Theodore,  93 
Monasticism,  177 
Montanism,  hi,  178,  210 
Monophysites,  176,  177 
Morinus,  De  Ordinationibus,  98, 
114,  249 

Moravians,  the,  290,  293 
Motile,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Durham,  277 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  197 
Mustard-seed,  parable  of,  24 

! 

Nau,  Professor  F.,  176  n. 

National  Christianity,  178,  241 
National  Church,  303,  308 
Nationalism,  179 
Nazarenes,  the,  51 
Neoplatonism,  139  n, 

Nestorius,  176,  213 
Nestorianism,  176 
Nesvorians,  the,  175 
Newman,  Cardinal  J.  H.,  136,  153 
Nicaea,  Council  of,  105,  232 
Nicholas  I.,  Pope,  184,  185,  186, 
189,  192 
Nisibis,  270 

Nonconformists,  239,  264 
Norwegian  Church,  the,  291,  293 
Novatians,  112,  113,  136 
Novatianism,  113,  220 
Nunn,  H.  P.  V.,  270 

Old  Catholics,  the,  290 
Order,  importance  of,  102 
Orders,  theory  of,  161  ff. 

Ordination,  81,  83  ff. 

—  of  the  Seven,  58 

—  ivhat  constitutes  a  regular,  129 

—  a  valid,  131 

—  a  sacrament,  133 

—  the  rule  of  the  Church,  131 

—  matter  and  form  of,  283,  284 
— <  method  of,  83 

— -  nature  of,  258 

—  who  received  it  ?  84 

—  of  a  bishop,  129 
— -  minister  of,  85 

—  Presbyterian,  131 

—  Episcopal,  99  ft.,  131,  254 ,307 
— -  Anglican.  283 

—  succession  by,  127 

—  per  saltum,  249,  284,  301 
Origen,  179,  237 

Orthodox  Church,  the,  179,  21 1,  215, 
239,  290 

Ottley,  Dr.  R.  L.,  138 
Overseer.  See  Bishop 
Oxford  Reformers,  195 
Oxford  movement,  the,  153 


Palmer,  Rev.  William,  188 
Papacy,  the,  190,  193 

—  causes  of  growth,  191 

—  the  medieval,  222 

—  and  unity,  the,  192 

—  definition  of  the,  191 
Papalism,  140 
Paphnutius,  132  n. 

Parker,  Dr.,  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury,  ordination  of,  283 

- - 249,  311 

Passover,  the,  41,  271 

Pastor,  a  synonym  for  presbyter,  65 

Pastoral  Epistles,  the,  49 

Paul,  St.,  relation  to  Apostles,  69 

Paulinus,  Bishop  of  Aquileia,  183 

Penance,  110  ff. 

Penitent,  restoration  of  the,  81 ,  82 
People  of  God,  25,  33,  34 
Persecution,  194,  203,  206 

—  of  Donatists,  163 
Peter,  St.,  89 

- speeches  in  the  Acts,  49 

- the  promise  to,  33  ff. 

- position  of,  35,  36  n.,  52,  70 

- not  infallible,  166 

Philaret,  Archbishop.  229  n. 
Photius,  Patriarch  of  Constaninople, 
184,  186 
Plotinus,  147 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  the,  200 
Polycarp,  Bishop  of  Smyrna,  97, 
104 

Pope,  authority  of  the,  204 
Portal,  Mons.  F.,  Lazariste,  248 
Porrectio  instrumentorum,  249,  263, 
283 

Prayer  with  laying  on  of  hands,  58 
Prayers,  the,  54 

Prayer-Book  Dictionary,  the,  ix,  124 
Presbyter,  61,  64  ff. 

Presbyters,  called  also  bishops  and 
pastors,  65 

—  origin  of,  66 

— -  functions  of  the,  68 

—  status  of,  1 17 

- —  taking  part  in  ordinations,  98 
Presbyterate,  the,  117 
Presbyterian  schism,  225 

—  Orders,  255,  301 
Presbyterianism,  88,  199,  239,  244, 

246,  300.  308 
Priesthood,  the,  256 

—  the  Character  of,  257 
Procession,  the  Double,  181,  297 
Prophet,  the,  61,  62 
Protestant,  21 1,  238 

—  view  of  the  Church,  216 
Protestantism,  140 
Psalms  of  Solomon,  9,  11 
Pseudo-Decretals.  See  Decretals 


INDEX 


325 


Puller,  Father  F.  W.,  S.S .J.E./193  n. 
Pusey,  Dr.  E.  P.,  227 
Purity  of  the  Church,  210 
Puritanism,  210 

Rabbis,  the,  34 
Ramsay,  Sir  W.,  93 
Rebaptism,  143,  155  ff. 

Reccared,  King  of  the  Visigoths, 
183 

Reformation,  the,  196  ff.,  221 
Reformers,  the,  275 
Reformers,  the,  their  Sacraments, 
268 

Reformed  Churches,  239 
Reichel,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Meath,  259 
Revue  anglo-romaine,  248 
Reuter,  Herrmann,  138 
Reordination,  143,  157 
Repentance  and  faith,  51 
Reunion,  285  ff. 

—  home,  304 

Robertson,  Dr.  A.,  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
19  n.,  26,  138,  147,  193  n. 
Robinson,  Dr.  Armitage,  vii,  52  n., 
57-  61 

Roman  Catholics,  290 

—  Church,  limits  of  its  authority, 
193 

- unchristian  methods,  194 

—  schism,  225 
Romanism,  89 

Rome  and  the  English  Church,  153 

—  claim  to  jurisdiction,  185 

—  appeal  to,  167 

—  list  of  Bishops,  96  n. 

Rome,  Church  of,  211,  214,  298  ff. 

- its  moderation,  136 

- not  infallible,  166 

- - position  of,  185 

Russian  Church,  the,  179 
Roumanian  Church,  the,  179 
Ryle,  Dr.  H.,  229  n. 

Sacerdotalism,  140 
Sacraments,  42,  46 

—  few  in  number,  168 

—  theory  of  the,  171 

—  nature  of,  258 

—  the  work  of  the  Church,  156  ff . 

—  the  rule  of  the  Church,  268 

—  Christ  the  minister  of,  1 56 
Sacramentalism,  140 
Sacramental,  the  Early  Church,  84 
Sacrifice,  the  Eucharistic,  256 
Sadducees,  51 

Saltet,  the  Abbe  Louis,  114 
Sanday,  Dr.  W.,  25  n. 

Sanhedrin,  the,  imitated  by 
Christians,  72,  89 
Sardica,  Council  of,  185 


Scandinavian  Church,  239,  290  ff. 
Schism,  221 

—  East  and  West,  179  ff. 
Schismatics  cannot  be  saved,  148 
Schmiedel,  Professor  P.  W.,  17  n., 

33-  52,  57-  66  n.,  134 
Scholasticism,  201 
Schoolmen,  the,  140,  249 
Schiirer,  Dr.  E.,  67  n. 

Scriptures,  the  Holy,  228  ff. 
Sectarianism,  201 
Seebohm,  Dr.  F.,  195  n. 

;  Seminaries,  203 
Seneca,  5 

Serapion,  Bishop  of  Thmuis,  252 
j  Serbian  Church,  the,  179 
i  Seven,  the,  57,  59 
Sharpe,  Dr.,  Archbishop  of  St. 
Andrews,  300 

Shepherd  of  Hermes,  77,  in 
Sohm,  Dr.  Rudolf,  134 
Solomon’s  portico,  54 
Sparrow-Simpson,  Dr.,  138 
Spirit,  the  Holy,  and  the  Church, 
157.  258 

Spiritual  gifts,  129 
Spottiswoode,  Dr.,  Archbishop  of 
St.  Andrews,  300 
Stephen,  Bishop  of  Rome,  114 
!  Stone,  Dr.  Darwell,  274 
Succession,  the  Apostolic,  viii, 

124  ff.,  137.  256,  261 

—  of  Bishops,  the  open,  125 

—  of  the  great  sees,  125 

—  from  St.  Peter,  144 

—  by  ordination,  127 

i  — -of  Gnostics,  the  Secret,  125 
Successors  of  the  Apostles,  the 
Bishops,  126 
Sulpicius  Severus,  93 
Summa  Theologica  on  the  Sacra¬ 
ment  of  Orders,  266 
Swedish  Church,  the,  291,  293  ff. 
Synagogue,  relation  to  Church,  68 

Tacitus,  93 

j  Talleyrand,  Bishop  of  Perigord,  283 
Tares,  Parable  of  the,  24 
Teacher,  61,  62 
Temple,  the,  54 
Temporal  power,  194 
Tertullian,  96  n.,  in,  113,  117,  136, 
179.  237 

Theodore,  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury,  287 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  202,  233,  234 
Thurston,  Rev.  Herbert,  S.J.,  215  n. 
Timothy,  Epistle  to,  50  n.  ' 

Titus,  93 

—  Epistle  to,  50  n. 

Toledo,  third  Council  of,  183 


INDEX 


326 


Tractarians,  the,  308 
Traditor,  141 

—  the  Christian,  125 
Transubstantiation,  201,  274,  278, 

298 

Trent,  Council  of.  See  Council 
Turks,  the,  187 

Turner,  C.  H.,  ix,  96  n.,  112,  117, 
124,  126,  132  n.,  158 
Twelve,  the,  29  ff.,  36,  62 

- their  discipleship,  37 

- purpose  of  appointment,  29 

—  - —  their  functions,  30 
- our  Lord’s  rebuke,  38 

Uniformity,  121 

—  condemned,  168 
Unitarians,  the,  238 
Unity,  1 71 

—  desire  for,  191 

—  of  Primitive  Church,  55 

—  in  Christ,  47 

—  essential,  151 

—  of  doctrine,  228 

—  of  the  Church,  the,  211  ff. 

—  organic,  287 


Van  Espen,  266 
Vatican  Council,  the,  204 
Vaughan,  Cardinal,  255,  266 
Victor,  Bishop  of  Rome,  122 
Victorinus  Afer,  139 


Wace,  Dr.,  Dean  of  Canterbury, 
276 

Wesleyans,  308 
Wesleyan  schism,  223 
Westcott,  Dr.  B.  F.,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  229  n. 

Westminster,  Archbishop  of,  161 
—  confession,  234 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  153 
Wobbermin,  D.  G.,  252  n. 

Words  of  our  Lord,  their  trust¬ 
worthiness,  18 

Wordsworth,  Dr.  John,  Bishop  of 
Salisbury,  252,  293 


Zahn,  Dr.  Theodore,  229  n. 
Zebedee,  sons  of,  38 
Zwinglianism,  196,  275 


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